


Meanwhile in Redcliffe

by NorroenDyrd



Series: Should Never Have Existed [9]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood Magic, Blood and Gore, Custom Hawke, Depression, Dialogue Heavy, Drunk Alistair, Emotions, F/M, Flashbacks, Gen, Illustrated, Introspection, Magic-Users, POV Alternating, Redcliffe, Some Humor, Tevinter Imperium, Tevinter Inquisitor, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-01 04:32:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 23,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13990539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: In an alternative universe, Gereon Alexius has succeeded in 'removing' the Herald of Andraste... In a way. Now he is the one who has the Anchor and is expected to deal with all the problems caused by his one-time master. As in this new continuity, Alexius was in the south right at the point of the Conclave explosion, the Venatori never found him in Minrathous, and he never usurped the castle of the Arl of Redcliffe. But memories of the former timeline still linger in the subconscious of Alexius' son Felix, who is worried by his father's sudden disappearance and decides he cannot sit idly. Finding his friend Dorian in a seedy tavern on the border of the Imperium, Felix implores him to join his journey south, to the town of Redcliffe, which he keeps seeing in his fever dreams. And it turns out that they arrive just in time: even though Alexius is now the Herald (and is away trying to conscript the Templars of Therinfal Redoubt), the Venatori still need cannon fodder, and the Redcliffe takeover is promising to become quite a bit bloodier than when Alexius was the local villain.





	1. Chapter 1

At first, the Fade was its usual shade of green, deep as the algae-tinted waters of a still, stagnant pool, lapping against a lone bed with a dreamer curled up on it. And if the Fade was a pool, that made the bed a pebble, tossed into the waves to be gulped down and carried off, a tiny speck of white amid the swirling green nothingness.

 

But then, as it floated on and on, seemingly without direction or purpose, the colour of the ethereal currents that flowed all around it began to change, streaks of fiery orange slashing through the rippling green and creating a bright, shimmering aura that gradually enveloped the hovering bed in a flaring bubble.

 

That could be a reflection of the fever the dreamer was obviously having: his pallid face almost blended in with the fresh linen, and there were rivulets of sweat running down his neck, marking his skin with a sticky glisten like the trails of a crawling slug. The bubble could have been moulded by the spirits trying to respond to the heavy, constricted sensation in the dreamer's chest, which rose and fell spasmodically, while his hands clawed at his sheets and his parted lips let through a series of squeaky whimpers.

 

But his heated-up prison did not retain the same shape for long. Presently, the bubble began to expand, till its outer curve vanished from view, blending in with the outer pool of the Fade.

 

As it grew, it also rapidly filled up with more colours and textures and shapes than just a stifling orange haze. As though some unseen painter was moving a brush in bold, skilled motions, adding more and more details to what had begun as a spotty, messy sketch: rough thick masonry, all bathed in firelight that sculpted the dark grooves in between individual stones; the square of a tapestry with figures of squat, droopy-faced hounds prancing across a meadow full of daisies, clumsily but caringly embroidered with thick, glossy maroon, yellow and green thread; a thick, reddish woolen rug slapped onto the floor that had suddenly built itself underneath the bed, the boards clicking in place one after the other like jigsaw pieces.

 

Even the bed itself transformed, creaking and groaning and stretching into a new shape the instant it stopped floating and landed on a solid wooden surface. It was broader now, with hound carvings at the head and foot and an open chest next to it, probably meant for clothing or spare blankets but filled to the brim with alchemical supplies.

 

When the mystical brush finished painting him into new surroundings, with one last dainty stroke of blue to indicate the light barely breaking through the shuttered window, the dreamer jolted up, opening his eyes.

 

'There it is again,' he said in a half-whisper, his tired, slightly dim eyes passing from the reeling elmwood hounds that snarled and swiped at one another with their squarish paws at the foot of his new bed, to the other, cheerier hounds in the tapestry, and the walls and the floor and the window.

 

'Just like I told you. My mind recreates this room so realistically... With none of the... oddities you'd expect to see in the Fade. But I swear that I have never been here in my life! Is my imagination so bland that even my fever dreams aren't out of the ordinary?'

 

As he spoke, a crack appeared in the wall opposite him - or rather not a crack but a tear, as if he was on-stage in a theatre and someone was ripping through the backdrop to join him. And, indeed, it was not long before that someone did make his appearance, drawing the tear's fraying edges apart with his hands, while a white glimmer pulsed under his fingertips.

 

It was a man, barely out of boyhood, with a narrow, angular face and long blonde hair that he wore in a tall braid. He was more lanky and wiry than the dreamer, his awkwardly long legs bending at a sharp, stick figure angle when he stepped over the tear's glowing rim.

 

As soon as he had both feet on the floor, the gash in the backdrop closed seamlessly behind him. A momentary white flash, a peculiar wobble (as if the wall were a chunk of jelly being prodded) - and the room was whole again. Painstakingly recreated down to the tiniest splinter chipped off the head of the bed, and to the faintest smudge on the rug, shaped very much like a dog's paw print.

 

The young man with the blonde braid strode from one corner to the other, passing his fingertips along the stone and wood - which appeared solid now, three-dimensional, all forms and lines unwarped - with his forehead creased in concentration and his ears twitching like those of a cat alerted to the presence of a mouse.

 

'I don't think it comes from your imagination...' he said at length, stopping in front of the bed. 'This feels more like an imprint of a real place. A room like this has to exist somewhere out there'.

 

'But how can I be dreaming of it if don't remember being here?!' the dreamer spread out his arms, perplexed. 'I mean... I have travelled a lot, true, and it's impossible to memorize the interior of every single inn room... But this decor, with all the dogs... It has to be Fereldan! And I have never set foot in Ferelden in my life!'

 

The blonde man cupped his sharp chin in his hand.

 

'Maybe it's not somewhere you have been... But somewhere you need to be?'

 

'Somewhere I should go to look for my father!' the dreamer breathed out, a hopeful warmth filling his eyes and making his whole countenance seem less worn-out and sickly. 'That would make sense, wouldn't it? Something out there... a spirit maybe? Is giving me a hint! Strong enough to reach the mind of a non-mage! It...'

 

The warmth flickered, and corners of his mouth sagged down for a moment, but his elated grin was quick to return.

 

'It could be a trap, of course... But I will take any chance to find out what happened to Father! I knew you would solve this puzzle, Feynriel - thank you!'

 

Feynriel gave him a smile.

 

'It was the least I could do to pay you back. You gave me a place to stay after... my apprenticeship came to an end; and helped me find a new mentor, too...'

 

'It would have been wrong to leave you stranded,' the dreamer said, still grinning back at Feynriel. 'After...'

 

The light in his eyes faded, this time for much longer, and he had to grab the bedclothes again.

 

'After Mother died, all of her apprentices had somewhere to return to - except for you. I mean, with Kirkwall being half-destroyed, and your mother's clan vanishing into nowhere... And I think that... this is what Mother would have wanted...'

 

The dreamer closed his eyes, a tic of pain touching his features.

 

'A bit of a cliché, right?' he asked quietly once his eyes were open again. 'But I do mean it. In the brief time that she knew you, she came to admire you very much. She could talk for hours about your experiments with the Veil, and even though much of it went over my head, I loved listening to her because of... the sheer joy that she radiated. And Father... he could actually understand what she was saying... and he would chime in with questions and praise and... It usually ended with kisses. When those two got deep into their arcane lore talk, it always had this... effect on them, like they were falling in love all over again'.

 

He chuckled wistfully to himself, and cut his digressions short with a pointedly loud remark addressed to Feynriel.

 

‘I do hope you will seek your Dalish kin out some day. Find yourself a family'.

 

Feynriel sighed.

 

'I'd... rather not talk about it, Mast... Felix. Let us keep digging into this dream. I think that maybe if we open the window...'

 

Trailing off thoughtfully, he turned towards the window and slapped his palm against the pane. Instantly, more glowing white cracks appeared, zigzagging from his hand and growing broader and broader. Before the dreamer's widened, slightly bulging eyes, the entire shuttered window fell apart into floating triangular shards, and the rest of the room soon followed suit - getting chopped up into pieces that were subsequently swept away, carried off by a gust of wind that rushed through the sky.

 

... For they were in the sky now, suspended in the heart of a boundless expanse of clear blue, with soft white clouds caressing, kitten-like, against their limbs. Felix's bed had taken the shape of a cloud as well, as had the floorboard on which Feynriel had been standing. And as it befitted the clouds, they drifted in the breeze, at a breathtaking height, casting fleeting shadows on the rolling green hills underneath, and on the winding streets of a bustling little village, hugging the shores of a dark-blue, unfathomably deep lake, with a half-crumbled old windmill spinning its wings drowsily on the horizon.

 

'Whoah!' Felix cried out, laughter bouncing breathlessly at the back of his throat. 'This is one of the most pleasant dreams I have had since I've been I'll! You are a wonder for showing me this - even if we don't discover what this is...'

 

But Feynriel was barely listening. His eyes, keener than Felix's (probably due to his elven heritage) had fixated on something down on the ground, and he made a smooth, wave-like motion with his hand several times, commanding the clouds to descend. After the white tufts slid close enough to the ground, spinning a bit along the way, Felix realized what had drawn Feynriel's attention. A wooden pole hammered into the ground by the side of the road leading up to the village, with a broad plank crudely attached to it. Across that plank, a single word was scrawled in white paint, along with an arrow indicating direction.

 

Redcliffe.


	2. Chapter 2

Dorian squinted down at his tankard, trying to discern whether the little slimy blurb circling in it was a clot of froth or a cockroach.  
  
The quality of the brew certainly matched the place's clientele: in the remote corner of his field of view, he could see the most grotesque flesh sacks, all hair-covered, cannonball-like muscle and barely any face (much less forehead), slumped over tiny tables and scanning the murky parlour (and he was using the word just because a more apt description did not come to mind just now) with eyes that burned with malice in the shadow of their rounded helmets. Slave hunters, probably. This had to be a good spot for them to do their stalking, so close to the border.  
  
And a few of the other patrons, slighter built, and breathing with such strained effort as if the air around them was turning to ash (which was not too far from the truth, what with all the pipe smoke) had to be some of the targets those brutes had been sent to hunt. They sat on very the edge of their creaking little stools - and not just for the sake of avoiding a particularly nasty spot of mould or not getting themselves pinned on a badly hammered nail - and, pulling their hooded cloaks tight over themselves, kept their faces hidden, for one glimpse of their features would prompt the hunters to pounce. It was a terrible risk for them to come here at all - but one supposed they needed to get themselves a meal, and hardly any of them would have the right skills to survive on their own by hunting and foraging for too long. Dorian imagined one of his own household servants trying to beat down a deer with a broom, and shook his head. Probably unworthy and distasteful, coming up with mental images like that.  
  
A quick chomp on whatever cold, stale block of paste passed for stewed vegetables here, and the runaways would slip off past the meaty thugs, continuing on their journey towards the dubious freedom of some slum on the border's other side... Although, if their masters sent such picturesque ruffians after them, they were not particularly kind. So perhaps it would be worth it.  
  
And hmmm... If the hunters made a move on those poor blighters, Dorian could see himself coming to their aid. A dazzling purple flash of magic to knock the slavers back, a twisting flurry of his embroidered clothing to create a (gorgeous) distraction - it would work. And at least this way, he would have no choice but to flee himself. To stop loitering on the border, nursing a pot o'cockroaches, and get out of Tevinter once and for all.  
  
He had no reason to stay. Not after... what happened. There was nothing left for him in the place he had once foolishly called home; and it was most infuriating that he still lingered on like this.  
  
So, there may have been rumours of some Tevinter supremacist cult cropping up and spreading through the country like a pack of plague-carrying rats (he was pretty certain that one such critter had brushed by his foot just now... a literal rat, that is). They were probably no worse than the usual pests that would strut about the Magisterium, all puffed up in their many-layered robes, heads held high and lips pursed into horseshoe shapes. There was no cause for concern - there could not be. And he needed to stop at that. To stop chasing shadows, to stop looking for... He did not even what exactly. But if he found something, anything at all that pointed at Tevinter being in real, serious danger, his conscience would nag at him until he turned around and took a dive back into the very web he had escaped. And the prospect sickened him.  
  
He was going to finish his drink, pick cockroach legs out of his teeth, and run off into nothingness, like one of those hapless cloaked wretches; and keep running, on and on and on, choking on that burning scream that had lived inside his heart all his life, unuttered, and was now clawing its way out. He was just going to...  
  
'Dorian Pavus?'  
  
While he had been busy (dramatically) brooding over his suspicious drink, one of the less ogre-like thugs had approached him from behind, laying a boulder-heavy hand on his shoulder.  
  
Dorian snarled, motes of magic beginning to whirr round the crooked fingers of his right hand, faster and faster with every moment. Well, fancy that: he had just been thinking of gracefully slinging around his spells to defend the fugitive slaves - but it turned out that he had to defend himself. Because apparently the great and illustrious Magister Halward Pavus had joined the ranks of those who wanted their property back. Well, this piece of property still had a trick or two up its sleeve!  
  
'Not so fast, my friend!'  
  
Dorian tossed the words into the thug's face together with a charge of lightning, which scorched the skin at the base of his jaw. Not too strongly, as Dorian was in too much of a hurry to let his magic build up properly - but at least it made him jump back with a bark of pain, shuddering all over. Which was a sufficient distraction to allow Dorian to whirl to his feet and unfurl an ethereal telekinetic thread out of the open palm of his other hand, twisting it round the leg of his stool and ready to lift it up and break it over the scoundrel's head at the lightest snap of Dorian's fingers.  
  
Somewhere in the bowels of the tavern, the publican stirred - a hunky bit of hazily outlined flotsam carried upon the waves of smoke. The fellow had to have gotten worried about the fate of his furniture (such as it was) - but, as fate would have it, he was fretting in vain. For when Dorian advanced at the thug again, his right hand now gloved in the vivid lilac aura of a much stronger spell blast, his eyes chanced to fall upon the engraved medallion dangling round his adversary's neck. A distinguishing design, marking him as an enforcer of one of the Alti houses. But not House Pavus. House Tilani.  
  
'Wait, you were sent here by Maevaris?' he blinked in confusion, slowly dropping his hands to his sides. 'What does she want with me?'  
  
'Just... Talk...' the enforcer wheezed, rubbing his spell burn. 'She is... Upstairs... In one of the... rooms...'  
  
'Rooms!' Dorian scoffed, in spite of himself, while his gaze still lingered warily on the man before him. 'That's a generous use of the word!'  
  
The enforcer shrugged, obviously not ready to get chummy after a magical assault (to be fair, neither was Dorian) and motioned to follow. After a moment's consideration, Dorian complied, and squeezed after him up a narrow staircase that looked as if it had been repeatedly flooded and then dried up, causing the  floorboards to arch like the backs of hissing cats, and to smell like age-old mildew. At the top of this architectural disaster, was an even narrower corridor, dark doorways lining its side like gaps between rotting teeth (the teeth, in this case, being strips of the wall, coated in yellowish plplaster  
  
By some inexplicable feat worthy of a master contortionist, the enforcer slid his bulk through one of such doorways, and when Dorian mimicked him, he found himself in a crammed little abode: essentially, a grey box enclosed by four blank walls, with not even a window to dispel the dense, soup-like semi-darkness.  
  
The entirety of the room's interior decoration amounted to a low, sagged-in bed - and on the edge of that bed, her legs crossed and one foot dangling impatiently over the greasy floor, sat a woman. It was hard to make out her features, lost in the shadows beneath the fuzzy cloud of blonde hair - but when she spoke, Dorian recognized her voice.  
  
'You have certainly chosen a seedy hideout, darling. If we were not on such good terms with each other, I would forward my tailor's and perfumer's bill to you. I do believe I am sitting dangerously close to a spot of urine'.  
  
A friendly jest - a welcome thing, to be sure... But he could not breathe put in relief just yet. For Maevaris to go to such lengths to seek him out, something dire must have happened.  
  
'You are not here about my father, are you?' Dorian asked, tension sinking its steely claws into his back.  
  
'No,' another voice responded, from the thick of the murky soup that began behind the bed.  
  
A voice that Dorian never thought he would hear again.  
  
'About mine'.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that the chapter number has changed from 2 to 3 as I have added a bit of a prologue. So if you want to learn about Felix's dreams, please go back to the beginning!

Dorian could hardly believe his eyes - and became so consumed by staring ahead that he did not even protest when Maevaris' enforcer backed out of the door again to stand guard at the entrance, walking over Dorian's feet and nearly squashing them into the likeness of a duck's webbed paddles.  
  
There he was - Felix Alexius, in the flesh. Hovering a bit shyly by the side of the bed where Maevaris sat and playing with a loose thread on his sleeve, while his eyes searched Dorian's face, huge and dark in the centre of deep bruised circles, which seemed even starker in the poor lighting of the room; just as his skin seemed greyer, colder, reflecting the drab colour of the walls.  
  
But at least he seemed to be standing firmly on his feet, and while Dorian could hear a sort of bubbling, thrumming noise break through his breathing, like something mechanical ground against the inside of his lungs, he was barely coughing. Not like... not like last time they met.  
  
'Felix,' Dorian mouthed, drawing closer - and suddenly, felt as if his own lungs were being scraped at. Damn the dust in the air for making his eyes sting!  
  
'Dorian,' Felix called back to him, his features lightning up.  
  
For some half a second, it almost seemed like he would shed that clammy grey mask that had stuck to his face - his real face - and gleefully announce that he thought he had discovered a secret passage in the library of the Alexius manor, and would Dorian care to distract himself from his books for a little bit and do some exploring...  
  
But the vision - fuelled by that cockroach-spiked ale, no doubt - quickly dissipated. A single blink was all it took for Dorian to be reminded - a chill seeping in between his spinal disks - that he was not eighteen years old any longer, and that the man that stood before him was already dead. Not matter how obstinately his father might pretend otherwise.  
  
Felix, in the meantime, had been fraying his sleeve further and further, anxious to string together some plea to Dorian.  
  
'I... I know this is sudden,' he spoke at last. 'And... you would rather not be bothered... I know that... You and Father did not... part amicably...'  
  
Dorian bit into his lip, his heart sinking and his cheek beginning to burn slightly at the memory of that ringing slap that had pushed him off-balance, echoing through the empty, stagnant rooms that had once been filled with laughter, and with the hissing and clicking of magical apparatuses, and with the lively chatter of the study group headed by Felix's mother Livia.  
  
He vaguely recalled Alexius bending down after that slap, eyeing his shaking hand in crushed disbelief, having seemingly aged a decade in the wake of his outburst at Dorian, who had screamed at him in helpless anger to get over it, to rise up and move on. To go back from being a faded shadow to the man that Dorian remembered. Because he could not bear losing the last remnant of the… the one family he had always known to be real. Genuine. Unconditionally caring. The one family that had felt like home.  
  
But he had not stayed to draw the scene out. He had turned away from his mentor, leaving him to shake and choke and stare at his hand, and made a proverbial beeline for the nearest place where he could get drunk. One had to have priorities.  
  
So yes. Not an amicable parting by any means. Still, Felix had combatted his condition for the sake of this meeting, and he was so obviously distraught that it would be unworthy of Dorian to sulk over the assault on his handsome face - especially one not perpetrated by him. And he had rather... missed Felix. And Maevaris for that matter. They were, after all, among the few people that made their disaster if a homeland worth living in.  
  
Dorian gave Felix an awkward smile and a brief nod to encourage him; while Maevaris looked up at him and patted his arm soothingly. Dipping his head, Felix swallowed, and said bluntly, his forehead creasing,  
  
'He is gone. Vanished into nowhere'.  
  
'Vanished?' Dorian repeated after him, a sensation of discomfort spearing through his gut.  
  
That was… not good. Before their little falling-out, Alexius had been refusing to eat and sleep, for fear it might distract him from caring for his son. If he had abandoned Felix without warning, it could hardly have been by his own volition. And losing him to some unknown magister-snatching force would be far more... final than losing him to grief.  
  
Felix nodded.  
  
'I am certain there was magic involved. One moment, he was right there, by my side - and the next... Nothing. An empty chair where he used to sit; his voice still in my ears, but... grave-like silence when I called to him'.  
  
He rubbed at his temples forcefully.  
  
'It was like Mother all over again, except so much more abrupt... And confusing'.  
  
He had to make a pause after that, yanking out a handkerchief and pressing it to his lips, a black blot instantly soiling the cloth. Maevaris stroked his arm again, and turned to address Dorian.  
  
'The poor boy wore his feet to bloody blisters, racing around Minrathous and beyond. Making inquiries. Most magisters wouldn't even grant him an audience'.  
  
Dorian cringed. Of course they wouldn't.  
  
Even though Felix had been spending most of his adult life - brief as it was doomed to be - in Orlais, he was still known in Tevinter's high society as 'Gereon's little disgrace'. A magister's son being born almost without magic - that was something guaranteed to till a most fertile soil for nurturing the poisoned fruit of derisive jokes for many, many years to come. The most bountiful harvest came from the lower-status nobles, who all had their greasy, covetous stares sizing up the Alexius seat at the Magisterium, which Felix would not be allowed to inherit from his father, even if the latter's ghost kept spelling his last will out in burning letters on every suitable wall in the building.  
  
Alexius had never talked about Felix's illness in public - nor had he actually appeared in public since Livia's funeral - but if the other Alti had learned about it, it would only have made mocking Felix more hilarious for them. They had been treating him like a leper long before... what happened: that smug high-heeled goose Erimond, for one, had banned Dorian from his home after a certain incident at a party he had been throwing for his colleagues and their families.  
  
The buffoon had had the nerve to snap his fingers demandingly at a slave, and to announce for all to hear that he needed a bowl of water to rinse himself off after Felix's handshake... So Dorian had done what any other sensible person would: set him on fire.  
  
Alexius and Livia had been on the opposite side of the room, but they had immediately teleported to Dorian, standing by him with a look of glowing approval on their faces while the gracious host was flailing and screeching, his eyes almost looking into opposite directions like a goat's (though that had not lasted long, sadly, for the slave had turned out quite resourceful and dumped the contents of the bowl over his master's magic-singed robes).  
  
'Maevaris was the only one who agreed to help,' Felix said, bringing Dorian back from his tangent. 'And... We have not found him anywhere... in Tevinter at least'.  
  
'So, you think something whisked him off out of the country?' Dorian voiced his first guess, pulling thoughtfully at his moustache. 'But what?'  
  
'I do not know if you have heard of the... "Venatori", Maevaris moved her index and middle fingers through the air to mime quotation marks, rolling up her eyes.  
  
'But they are gaining momentum, pestering many magisters to join their ranks. We visited Demetrius on our little investigation - he and Gereon had gotten friendly during their fix-the-roads project, and I reasoned he might have heard something from him - and he showed us some letters from Erimond. What Demetrius sees in the slug is beyond me, but the fact remains. He has flooded him in a torrent of veritable hymns in praise of these cultists and how they will make Tevinter rise above all nations'.  
  
Dorian tilted his head a sliver of an inch to the side and tapped his finger against his lips, processing what Maevaris had told him. He really did hope he looked nonchalant enough, because the back of his head was beginning to ache with an intrusive fear that...  
  
'Don't worry, Halward has not joined them,' Maevaris said, her narrowed eyes lingering on Dorian's face.  
  
So... Not that nonchalant then.  
  
'And you believe Alexius has?' Dorian hurried to ask, his mouth filling up with a burning bitterness at the thought of the man... the men he had once looked up to standing among crazed robed extremists.  
  
'He is not Erimond! He may have... changed lately,' Dorian shot an apologetic glance at Felix, already regretting his phrasing. 'But he should be smart enough not to buy into that nonsense!'  
  
Felix sighed, crumpling his bloody handkerchief in his hand.  
  
'We were talking about them just before he vanished. He told me they were a disgrace to Tevinter and theirs was not the way, but... But there was something in his eyes... That... hunted look he gets whenever one of his spells and potions fails to put me back on my feet... And now... I can't help but fear that... That he went against his own principles...'  
  
'A cult that is so certain that they can bring back the Imperium of our ancestors may well be in possession of some powerful magic - or artifact at least,' Maevaris nodded. 'And a source of power is perfect for tempting people who are... desperate'.  
  
Desperate. The bitterness reached its peak, stifling Dorian's breath. His father had told him he was desperate too. Desperate to preserve his fucking legacy.  
  
'Well, if that is true,' he said stiffly, 'If he abandoned you, Felix - on your sickbed! - to chase after some magical whatsit... Then he does not deserve being looked for. By you, by me, by Mae - or by anyone else'.  
  
He had not thought Felix could go any paler - and yet, there he was, looking like one of those silly ghost costumes they would wear as children on Feast Day. A sheet with two gaping black holes for eyes. An inappropriate metaphor, yes - his mind had no excuses to keep going on tangents like that.  
  
'I shall not... believe that he... abandoned... me... until I find him... and look him in the eye… and hear him... say it... with my own ears,' Felix said, every word a hoarse gasp, with lengthy pauses in between.  
  
'What if... What if the Venatori put him under duress? What if they... abducted him... for the sake of his... research? That's why... I decided... to turn to you... Maevaris is needed back at the Magisterium... And after she returns to Minrathous... I thought I could... Continue the search with you... Because you worked with Father... You would know... which magic... to look out for... And also...'  
  
He staggered, his legs giving way, and had to press one knee into the rancid mattress to keep himself from keeling over.  
  
'I... I am all alone now. I am not afraid of... of dying... But I can't leave this world with everyone I care about... lost to me... Please, Dorian... You are my oldest friend... Will you... Accompany me as I try to find Father...'  
  
Maevaris had been right. There definitely was a spot of urine on that bed. And Dorian would not have Felix suffer the ordeal of brushing against it. That was... the sole reason why Dorian stepped forth, grabbed tightly at Felix's arms, and steered him away from the disgusting excuse for a piece of furniture, helping him recline back against a wall for support instead. When he drew away, Dorian met Felix's gaze and smiled at him, feeling his eyebrows arch into those sad little brackets that no self-respecting Altus would tolerate on his finely chiselled face.  
  
Maker, if he spent any more time watching Felix fight back against dizziness and nausea - determined to get reunited with his father no matter what - and stewing in his guilt over causing a scene and running away when he could have been there for his mentor and his best friend... He just might start falling apart like Alexius had.  
  
And it would be most unbecoming for him to fall apart. Better distract himself by concocting a plan of dashing adventure! A quest to rescue a wayward scholar! Because the version about the magister-snatchers did sound much better than… the other one.  
  
'Well, I suppose someone has to watch over you in case your Alexius bloodline acts up and you decide to do something desperate,' Dorian said to Felix.  
  
Also, someone had to regularly wield healing magic to keep Felix from collapsing - but that was something best left unsaid.  
  
'Do you... have any ides where we might start?'  
  
Felix beamed at Dorian gratefully - and then, on an impulse, blurted out a single sentence without pausing for breath,  
  
'You may think me stupid for this, and it likely does not mean anything because I am not a mage; but I have been having dreams, of a place that I know I have never been to before and yet still find familiar somehow; a place that has turned out to be the village of Redcliffe, in Ferelden. My gut it telling me that we should head there'.  
  
'And not just your gut, Felix,' Maevaris weighed in. 'I have contacts in the south - mostly through the cousin of my poor love Thorold - and the word is that the Venatori cult is planning something there. The first inklings of an invasion, perhaps? The place is a hotbed of ruptures in the Veil, and the local peacekeeping force - the Inquisition, I think they call themselves - seems to think the Venatori are behind it'.  
  
Dorian inclined his head gravely. So this was bigger than mere rat-like scurrying. And if so, it was his duty to throw himself into the crucible; not just for the sake of Felix and... and Gereon. For the sake of doing what was right.  
  
'Very well, my good friend,' he said, clearing his throat, 'Let us mingle with some dog lords, shall we?'


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit of a slow chapter, but I wanted to jot down some ideas for bonding between Cassandra, bethany, and Herald!Alexius, which I might describe separately and in more detail in the future. Also, Josephine getting flustered both by Bull and f!Trevelyan was a cute mental image to come up with - although she has a love interest of her very own in store. ;)
> 
> The illustration at the beginning illustrates what Bethany looks like in this universe.

 

 

'And then, my brother looked up at him, eyebrow tweezers still in hand, pinkie outstretched...'  
  
Bethany Hawke, a petite young mage with light-brown skin, closely cropped black hair, and soft dimples on her cheeks, readjusted the hold of her reins and raised one hand before her face to mime the gesture she was describing.  
  
'And said, "This is all well and good, Knight Captain, but it still does not explain why you are not wearing any pants"'.  
  
The punchline was met with a hearty guffaw from the grey horned giant that was briskly walking astride with her and the other Inquisition members' horses, Master Dennet having not yet found a mount capable of carrying his weight. This mountain of a Qunari, known as The Iron Bull, was the leader of the Inquisition's recently hired mercenaries - doubling as a spy for the dread Ben-Hassrath, mind-twisters of the Qun, which would have raised far more concern were the circumstances not so... out of the ordinary.  
  
He had been torn which group to accompany, for protection and intelligence-gathering: the Herald's entourage that headed for Therinfal Redoubt to negotiate with the Templars, or Josephine's diplomatic mission to Redcliffe, which had been tasked to see if Grand Enchanter Fiona and her mages would make good on their offer of alliance.  
  
In the end, the Qunari had settled for the latter. And he had even listed a few very sound, logical reasons why he wanted to be there: for instance, the Qun would probably be more interested in how they dealt with 'a bunch of Saarebas sitting around unsupervised; whoah, don't glare at me like that, Trev!'.  
  
But for all his talk, for all his justifications, Josephine could not help but think to herself that he just wanted to spend more time around the very 'Trev' he had offended with his offhand remark about 'Saarebas', 'dangerous things', as his kin referred to mages.  
  
Leli would probably roll up her eyes, smiling with the slightest hint at condescension, and say that Josephine had seen one high-strung Orlesian play too many... But... But they always seemed so at ease around each other - and even complemented each other appearance-wise, since Trevelyan loved sparring with non-magical weapons, which had rewarded her with pronounced, honed musculature, especially on the back and arms, which she had this way of flexing... A way that somehow made the air around her grow hotter, stuffier, more summer-like. Just as it happened while Bull was doing his own training!  
  
And just look at how hard Bull had been trying to smooth things over with Trevelyan during this journey of theirs! Raising his voice as he would spin yarn after yarn about his Chargers' impossible adventures (all of them involving gigantic creatures of some kind, which the Qunari absolutely revelled in describing in exhaustive detail, down to the last bristle on their many limbs), and egging Trevelyan and everyone else in their party on to share memories of their own.  
  
And it was working, too: after a reassurance from Bull that he, for his own part, was 'all right with the way you folks live outside the Qun', Trevelyan had mellowed, and allowed herself to reminisce about some complex stunts she and her peers would devise to outwit the Circle's Templars. Her and Bull's joined laughter at the end of the Epic Saga of the Bucket, the Ribbon, and the Stuffed Owl had proved contagious enough to push Josephine to join in with some curious anecdotes based on the Great Game (with all the names changed, of course). And now Bethany had taken her turn as well.  
  
The younger sister of the famed Champion of Kirkwall had joined the Inquisition a bit unexpectedly. Most of all, for Varric, who had greeted her - arms raised and eyebrows almost merging with his hairline... the hair on his head, that is - with an exclamation that was both comically overdramatic, and tinted with worry and sadness.  
  
'Andraste's tits, Sunshine, has this shit sucked you in too?!'  
  
She had been present at the soirée held by Madame Vivienne, where the Herald had secured the support of the loyalist mages. Wearing a charming ensemble of red and gold, as trusted sources reported, which had really brought out her eyes (though her mask had been too big for her, and she would fiddle with it throughout the evening, taking it off and trying to adjust the fit better, which would inevitably draw terrified gasps from many of the guests).  
  
The older of the Hawke siblings, as Josephine was well aware, occasionally played the Game himself - though his goals were for the most part quite unheard of (quite sadly!). Like making fair trade agreements, or improving the working conditions of his fellow Fereldans, or setting up genuine charities, intended to keep the poor fed and sheltered rather than to tick off a box in his political biography. During his pursuit of these goals, he had managed to encounter and befriend Vivienne, and, as it turned out, it was at her patron's court that he had tucked Bethany away, to shield her from the violence that spilled out of Kirkwall like liquid metal out of a seething melting pot. And when Vivienne and her loyalists moved into Haven, so did Bethany.  
  
Despite Varric's exaggerated clucking (which had to be only half in jest), she was determined to pull her weight and help the Inquisition in any way she could. And taking part in the Redcliffe mission, while Bethany's benefactor Vivienne was busy organizing the delegation of Orlesian nobles to Therinfal, certainly counted as pulling her weight. Like Trevelyan, Bethany wanted to see if any of the rebels were her former Circle mates, which could make an alliance talk easier. So, gone was the Orlesian red and gold ensemble, and on was the travel robe reinforced with chainmail.  
  
'You make lovely company, Lady Hawke,' Josephine said softly, as soon as she was able to put in a word in between bouts of Bull's laughter. 'And...' she added with the tiniest, most discreet of sly smiles, 'A delightful source of gossip about our dear Commander Cullen!'  
  
Bethany moved her raised hand to her lips, her dimples deepening.  
  
'Thank you, Lady Montiliyet. But that is just my brother's charm rubbing off. He has always been what Father would call "the Amellest of the children". Learned to bow before he could properly walk, as the family joke went. I think Varric even put it into his book. Along with that lavish description of his, uh, "jet black curls and elegant goatee". And the part where the green-gold light that shone through the branches of “trees and other nature things" on Sundermount fell onto his profile… while he introduced himself to Merrill and kissed her hand… And she let out a... how did he put it... "squeal that surely killed at least a dozen nearby birds".'  
  
Bethany snorted under her breath.  
  
'I think I know that part of the book by heart because Merrill would keep running off with Varric's drafts and reading them out loud... " Varric is so wonderful at explaining how much I love ma vhenan," she'd say'.  
  
She shook her head, her hand falling back to her saddle and her smile vanishing, as though wiped off.  
  
'I do miss them so. My brother and, well... I suppose she is my sister-in-law now. We only have each other left...'  
  
Josephine steered her horse closer to Bethany's, reaching forward to give her a subtle soothing touch.  
  
Josephine would never tell anyone of it, of course, as it was highly improper - but she had chanced to overhear young Lady Hawke talking about her family losses to Cassandra and the Herald.  
  
It had not been too long before this mission. Josephine had been sitting at her desk and reviewing the letter Vivienne had received from Lord Abernache, with the door to her impromptu study left slightly ajar by a messenger (yes, yes, she should have gotten up and closed it to keep the draught from creeping in, but the combination of well-stuffed cushions and her own body heat had turned her armchair into a toasty-warm snare). And, through the rustle of her papers, several voices had resounded from the Chantry hall.  
  
First, Cassandra's, insistent, with a tremulous undertone of disappointment,  
  
'Are you certain you cannot tell us where your brother might be? We could still have use of him, and Varric is anything but cooperative'.  
  
Then, Bethany's, lowered to a melancholy murmur,  
  
'I am sorry, Seeker... Roy did not confide that in me. For my protection, I guess. Last I heard from him was in a letter where he... where he instructed Aveline how not to scare the Orlesians out of their breeches when she dropped me off at Madame Vivienne's'.  
  
And then, suddenly, drowning out the last of Bethany's words with a deliberately loud cough, the Herald had joined in, inward tension cracking through his every word.  
  
'Cassandra... I am allowed to address you as Cassandra, am I not? I... I have been thinking... And I would like to apologize. For - for yelling like that. And... releasing that lightning bolt into the wall. Leliana did punish me for the outburst by moving me to a... less comfortable cell... If anyone had gotten hurt, I imagine my fate would have been much worse... But punishment has little point to it if the... culprit does not realize what they did wrong. I... made a fool out of myself, and allowed my magic to get destructive. And while I... cannot guarantee that it shall never happen again, I will make certain that my next... unseemly fit happens away from living beings'.  
  
He had, of course, referenced the latest... unfortunate incident when he had lost his temper over the lack of news about the location of his son. From what Josephine could make out (not that she had been listening in on purpose!), Cassandra's response to his apology had been curiously... friendly.  
  
'I would not call you a culprit. Maker knows I myself lash out... like the sky above us... when I worry about someone dear to me. When my brother was killed, I almost went mad with helpless rage. Thank goodness I was a child then, and could barely lift a blade, let alone throw it at a wall... Or a person'.  
  
At that point, all three of them had broken into a jumbled, emotional chorus, their voices pouring into one another like leaping streams of water, whereas the listener had found the tip of her nose and the corners of her eyes tickled by a hot, moist prickle.  
  
'Oh no, Seeker, I am so sorry! I lost a brother too! My twin, Carver, not Roy... But sometimes I am terrified that I will lose him too... Because...'  
  
'Because he is all you have left... And every moment spent away from him, not knowing where he is, what is happening to him, feels like... like something is biting off a sliver of your heart's flesh... Again and again'.  
  
'Oh... That's a morbid comparison... Lord Herald... But yes, now that I think of it... This is exactly what I go through each time I try to imagine... what's going on with Roy...'  
  
'Ugh, please, no tearful scenes! I mean... That was insensitive of me. I... I hope that Hawke is well, wherever he is - as is your son. The Inquisition will find him. And bring him to you, as promised'.  
  
That exchange had been followed by three sets of footfalls, slowly moving away from Josephine's door. She liked to imagine them spending the next few minutes locked in a comforting embrace, patting each other on the back, telling stories of the people they had lost or had been parted with. And she rather wanted to offer Bethany the same comfort - but she probably had no moral ground to do so. All of her siblings, much as she longed to see their silly faces again sometimes, were safe and sound and being their exasperating selves in the comfort of their parents' home.  
  
Still, she did brush her fingers against Bethany's knuckles, and follow the gesture up with a smile.  
  
'You will see Roy and Merrill again, Lady Hawke,' she said. 'Just believe in it'.  
  
'Would have been great if Hawke showed up on our doorstep, kicking ass!' Bull chimed in, his tone almost dreamy. 'The way his crew got rid of that dragon - damn!'  
  
He added some guttural, thundering phrase in Qunlat, which was evidently rather dirty, for Trevelyan gave him a knowing look, smirking so much that her eye - the right one, on the undamaged side of her face - vanished amid folds of crinkled skin.  
  
Josephine glanced away from the laughing duo, just as the Redcliffe town gates rose in front of them, a guard standing on ceremony when she saw the Inquisition banners coiling in the wind above the heads of the horses and riders. They were expected.  
  
And as far as Josephine was concerned, diplomatic talks were also an 'ass-kicking' in their own right, just as slaying dragons. Although, of course, there would not be any bloodshed.


	5. Chapter 5

This was not Halamshiral, of course, but their hosts had done their utmost to prepare anything that might be needed for the negotiations.   
  
As the small horseback procession of Inquisition agents passed under the stone arch marking the entrance to the village, the guardswoman relaxed her stiff, bug-eyed pose a little and reached for a small signal horn that she carried on her belt. Its shrill, clear call resounded through the gateway, and soon, another group of guards, all bearing the same crest on their cuirasses and shields - a grey towerlet perched on a bright-red cliff against a white background - came marching in single file down the unpaved little street that glinted with steely stripes of puddles from a recent rain.  
  
The guard at the head of the line gave Josephine an abrupt, jerk-like bow; and, turning around with a booming outcry, wordless but very rousing, he and his men escorted the guests through the smattering of thatched cottages, and past the bumpy tufts of grass that carpeted the ruins of Old Redcliffe - abandoned after an invasion of the living dead during the Fifth Blight, which truly must have been a living nightmare for those poor, poor people - and across the narrow stone bridge that soared high above the mirror-like, seemingly shoreless lake, right until they found themselves in the castle of the local lord.  
  
In there, in the throne room, guarded ever vigilantly by some half a dozen brightly painted wooden dog statues, with enormous mouths and triangular fangs like the teeth of a saw, a table had been laid out for them, with writing supplies, and chubby earthenware jugs that Josephine really, really hoped contained water, and also a few simple but sustaining dishes that Bull immediately scanned with his only eye: a coil of reddish-brown sausages, a pale wheel of goat cheese, and a large round loaf of rye bread.  
  
Fiona was already here, perched on a chair at the further end of the table, surrounded by quite a few slouching, sheepish figures, mostly clad in motley garments that may once have been Circle-issued robes but now were, in essence, wearable quilts, thrown together from many-coloured patches, slivers of thick stitching, and the last remaining rectangles of original cloth.  
  
The mages - ranging in age from elderly enchanters with darting, helpless gazes, to quiet, withdrawn children that clung to the grown-ups' sleeves - were more than a bit nervous, many of them shuffling their feet or biting their nails. One young man in a loosely hanging grey-blue shirt, with a snubbed nose and evenly parted brown hair, which had one loose strand that kept falling into his eyes, looked like he was on the verge of bursting into tears.    
  
And that was quite understandable: the arl was in the room as well, seated on the throne with guards on either side of him, watching over the table like a hawk - an almost tangibly annoyed one at that.   
  
The emotion little short of dripped from every inch of him, from his boots, which tapped restlessly at the floor, to the tips of his (rather prominent) ears and to each strand of his silver-streaked, braided ginger hair, which he kept twisting mechanically round his finger.  
  
He was far from thrilled about his queen's decision to turn Redcliffe, of all places, into a sanctuary for the refugees from the fallen Circles. And the only way he could have made it more obvious would have been to hold up a broad stripe of canvas over his head, with the words 'GET THESE MAGES OFF MY PROPERTY!' splashed across it in the most vivid shade of crimson.   
  
Well, it was up to Josephine now to relieve him of the burden, was it not? And she was going to do her utmost to make Haven a more hospitable home than Redcliffe.  
  
As her charges tittered anxiously around her, Fiona would occasionally shoot a firm yet reassuring glance at some of the most emotional ones - and when the Inquisition walked in, it was clearly a tremendous relief for everyone. Her eyes brightening, the Grand Enchanter got up from her seat and extended her hand to Josephine in a brusque, businesslike manner.  
  
'I see the Herald is not among you,' she remarked, after acknowledging Josephine's Orlesian 'Bonjour, merci pour l'hospitalité' with a fleeting, rather wry smile.  
  
'Pity. I was rather hoping to talk to him in person. He...'  
  
Fiona arched an eyebrow.  
  
'He is not afraid of me, is he? When we met in Val Royeaux, he could barely look me in the eye'.  
  
Josephine responded with a practiced pearly smile, to hide the strenuous throb of thought at the back of her head.   
  
Fiona's words were very much consistent with the reports Leli's agents had sent ahead during the Herald and Cassandra's visit to the capital to appeal to the clerics. And also with what Varric, who had (of course) tagged along, would constantly say to tease the Herald.  
  
'What's up with you and Fiona, Archon?' he would prod him, grinning and running his thumb along the side of a blank paper stack, as though shuffling a deck of cards.  
  
'When she showed up to thank you for securing the King's Road, you looked like you had seen a ghost! And what was that... breathless question of yours about? "Do you remember my face?" Some weird Tevinter magicky thing again, hmm?'  
  
'Perhaps,' the Herald would snap back, straightening his back and drawing himself up, as if he wanted to distance himself from the dwarven author as much as he could, by appearing an inch taller.  
  
'The important thing is, she really does not remember. I shall leave it at that for the time... the time being. And will you kindly stop calling me Archon? It is awkward and woefully inaccurate; the Archon is not even part of the Magisterium! And...'  
  
His voice's pitch and speed would always rise at that point, his accent becoming thicker - which would remind Josephine of her Antivan compatriots when they became agitated. It seemed that, much as every other nation tried to prove to all and sundry how different it was from Tevinter, the northern tempers were not that different after all.  
  
'Have you not considered what would happen,' the Herald would say, flourishing his arm for emphasis. 'If rumours spread that the supposed Andrastian hero is being referred to by a Tevinter title? I thought that my... identity was supposed to be a secret from the general public! Not to mention, if the actual Archon Radonis found out...'  
  
Varric would chuckle, unfazed.  
  
'Oh, I know all that stuff about the Magisterium. My cousin was one of those Tevinter dwarves; better sort than most of their gold-sniffing lot. And I still think the nickname suits you; after that speech you gave to the clerics. Nice and flashy; very Archon-like. But I wouldn't want you to get your robes in a twist; so... How about Archie?'  
  
Josephine could not deny being curious as to why 'Archie' the Herald had, one moment, faced down Revered Mother Hevara with the aggressive confidence of a campaigning politician, declaring that the Chantry was 'too busy being holier than thou' to do its supposed duty and protect 'the people of Southern Thedas' - and the next, when approached by Fiona, had grown paralyzed and lumpy-white, as if his head had been ducked forcefully into a sack of flour, unable to say a word except for that odd question of his.  
  
But unfortunately, she had no answer to that mystery, to satisfy either herself or the Grand Enchanter. So all she could do right here, at the negotiations table in Redcliffe, was to maintain her smile and say with elusive politeness,  
  
'The Herald decided that the... outlandish behaviour of Lord Seeker Lucius of the Templar Order merits an urgent investigation. But he did not want to miss an opportunity for such a promising alliance, so he delegated me, as the Inquisition's ambassador, to...'   
  
She would have provided far more (eloquently worded!) reassurances - were she not cut short by one of the mages that were crowding along Fiona's end of the table. A green-robed young woman with bristling dark hair and an elongated, sour face - rather short in stature, but with every inch of her wound up into a tight, quivering spring, ready to leap loose in lashing anger at the slightest provocation. And that provocation had apparently arrived in the form of Josephine mentioning the Templars.  
  
'I knew it!' she shrieked, shoving unceremoniously past Fiona and pointing a condemning finger at Josephine and the delegates behind her back.  
  
'This stupid alliance is nothing but a trap, to lure us into another Circle! Why else would the Inquisition grovel at the Templars behind our backs?!'  
  
'Whoah, whoah,' Trevelyan interceded, with a broad step forward, one hand reaching out, palm first, and the other grasping at the staff behind her back (Bull had noted her motion and, in unison with her, brushed his three-fingered hand against the shaft of his battle axe).  
  
'Do you really think that this is what the Herald is doing?! Plotting to... imprison you? The Inquisition wants to seal the Breach - you know, that big demon-pooping thing in the sky? - and to achieve that, we will need both mages and Templars to work together! That was the point of the Conclave in the first place!'  
  
'Easy for you to say!'  the sour-faced mage spat, half of her long face now taken up by a gaping, angry mouth. 'You were always the teachers' darling, Nadia! Always got things the easy way!'  
  
'The easy way?! The easy way?!'   
  
Now it was Trevelyan's mouth that twisted and quivered, while her arms appeared to swell up with muscle tension.  
  
'I lost my fucking husband to this war!' she bellowed, showering the sour-faced mage in spittle. 'First thing we did after we were out was get married - cuz no more Circles, no more watchful eyes, no more secret meetings, all poisoned with fear of punishment for...'  
  
She caught her breath, with a loud, almost comical hoarse noise at the back of her throat.  
  
'For "fraternization"! And then, not even two weeks later, some fried-brain Templar ran him through with a sword! That's why I went to the Conclave! That's why I stuck with the Inquisition! That's why I trust the Herald! This war fucking broke me, and I will run myself into the ground to make sure that it doesn't break anyone again! So don't you dare say that I get things the easy way! Don't you dare assume shit about me! Maker's dick, I don't even know you!'  
  
'Of course you don't know me,' sour-face hissed, while Bull pulled Trevelyan away from her (with just one arm, for he was still ready to draw his axe).  
  
'I was not good enough for you to give me the time of day!'  
  
'That is quite enough, Linnea!' Fiona shouted - right before hitting the floor between the two young women with her staff, in a powerful downward strike that made swirls of clear green light branch out from its tip, glazing the carpet underfoot like Fade-touched frost.  
  
'I never thought I would have to cast a Glyph of Revulsion between one of my own mages and a potential ally!'  
  
'And I never thought that, by allowing you to keep your staves,  I would turn my castle into some sort of... twisted magic... circus... again!' the arl barked, leaving his throne and snapping his fingers at the guards to stand ready to defend him.  
  
'You are on thin ice, Enchanter! Another yelling match like this, and I will throw you out, Inquisition included! I will not have the people of Redcliffe fear for their safety - after they chose to show you kindness!'  
  
'There was no kindness; Queen Anora forced you to let us stay,' Linnea growled to herself. 'Nobody wants us in this Maker-forsaken arse-end of...'  
  
'Arl Teagan! Arl Teagan!'  
  
The rest of Linnea's curses, as well as Lady Hawke's incoherent but comforting murmur to a still reeling Trevelyan, and Josephine's tentative call for everyone to disarm and lay their staves and blades down on the table, was drowned out by the frantic call of a new arrival - yet another guard, with a broad freckled face that reflected all the light in the room like a polished pan, what with how sweaty it was. He had darted into the throne room unannounced, clutching at his side, with a ribbon of blood snaking after him.  
  
'There are... Mages... At the gate...' he whimpered, collapsing at the feet of his stone-frozen comrades. 'Dark... hoods... Dark... spells... Call themselves... The Vein... ah... tour-ee...'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since Fiona is making a far more active stance in an AU where Alexius is not the scheming Tevinter magister but the (accidental) Herald, and will not surrender to the Venatori, I think that the boss fight in In Your Heart Shall Burn is gonna be abomination!Linnea.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have received some kind comments, which has inspired me to jot down a quick next chapter. And to come up with a throwaway Venatori OC for describing a villainous POV. Apparently the boy Dorian had a duel with as a child grew up to be quite a monster!

The other Venatori were still doubtful about his plan. To know this, Ignatius did not even have to listen too closely to the muffled whispers that they exchanged behind his back, as they walked up one of those dung-smeared gulleys in the grass that the southerners called roads (even the most dilapidated stone highways back in their glorious homeland were far more pleasant to tread!).  
  
He could sense their questioning stares at the back of his head - so many pairs of eyes scrutinizing him, from under the rim of lowered black hoods, that he even began to feel a subtle but still nagging ache press against his temples and crown. And he could tell, down to the last word, what those stares spelled out.  
  
That this was foolish. Impulsive.   
  
That their group was small in number, and they were straying too far on their own, without the sanction of the Elder One, or at least Calpernia (while Ignatius trusted his new god's infinite wisdom in choosing his most trusted servants, he could never bring himself to refer to the woman as 'Lady Calpernia'; she used to be a bloody slave!). That they were... going rogue, in a manner of speaking, veering off into the wilds while the divine master was preoccupied by enthralling the red lyrium vessels for General Samson's army.  
  
That yes, the mages of Redcliffe would have made a fine prize - so much convenient fodder to be tossed onto the front lines, and maybe even some more capable spellcasters (as much as the southerners could ever be capable, what with their minds being naturally weak from birth) that could potentially be recruited into the lowest rankings if they proved their worth. Not to mention the sizeable supply of Tranquil skulls for seeking the shards of the ancient key to the elven temple (of course, those skulls were still inside the useless branded bodies, but that was merely a temporary setback)... But tempting as it might be to claim these mages for the cause, now was far from the best moment to approach them.  
  
If they had intercepted the lost, meandering rebels in the very wake of the Conclave, when chaos had reigned supreme and none of the pathetic southern wretches had known where to hide from the raw power of the Fade - then, perhaps, their trust would have been far easier to gain.  
  
The forces of the Elder One could have promised them security and protection (protection of the kind cattle would get inside their pen, but the southerners did not need to know that), and the desperation of being cornered by Templars on side and demons on the other would have done the rest.  
  
But that opportunity had slipped past the Venatori, and they possessed no magic that could have reversed the flow of time and brought them back to the day of the Elder One's grand sacrifice again (there had been a couple of experimenters in Minrathous somewhere, dabbling in this manner of spellcraft, but they both seemed to have vanished). So the mages were well-settled now, protected by the Fereldan queen and in contact with that meddlesome Inquisition; they would not be easy to sway to the side of the Elder One.  
  
Ignatius was well aware of that, all of that - but he still persisted, still drew the other Venatori after him through the foul-smelling muck and the stupid grass that insisted on leaving stains on their finely crafted robes. For he still believed - with the full ardour of his heart, which was ready to beat and bleed for the golden future where the whole world would be at the Imperium's heel - that they could make it. That they could assault the Redcliffe Castle and wring the rebels out of there. Preferably with as much bloodshed as possible. Ignatius rather... enjoyed bloodshed.  
  
He had always enjoyed bloodshed. Even as a child, when he was challenged to a magical duel by one of his fellow junior Circle students. He did not really recollect who it was, other than it had to have been the scion of an Altus family, for otherwise Ignatius would not have as much as deigned to share the same space with the boy, let alone cross staves with him. He believed that the little Altus was subsequently expelled - of course he was; he had had the gall to win! Must have cheated somehow, the smug little upstart, small in stature but not in ego, with a full-lipped mouth that Ignatius still remembered curling up when the boy stood over his own panting, kneeling self. Like a cat's mouth would curl after a successful sneaky foray into the larder.  
  
Well, in any case. Ignatius had taken that boy up on his offer not as much for the sake of proving who was the better, smarter mageling, as because he had been itching to make him hurt.  
  
To carve a spell scar across that cheeky round face of his, from his chin to the birthmark under his eye, making blood stream down his gilded vest, so that the happy yellow needlepoint snakes turned into soggy, gnarled, shapeless clots of red.  
  
To watch the wretch squirm, sinking to the floor and whimpering into the marble floor, fists clasped tightly in pain. Maybe even step on one of his extremities for good measure, rotating his foot till bones began to crack, and prompting a most melodious succession of squeals.  
  
Alas, that had not been meant to be. But Ignatius had never lost his fondness for watching the dainty trickle of blood and listening to gasps and outcries and tearful pleas. His mother - the narrow-minded old crone! - never understood him. Only recently, she had gone so far as to disinherit him. The audacity! The outrage! The blemish upon his honour! And for what?! For removing the skin of a slave! Pah, it had not even been a human! Not even a person!  
  
Thank heavens for the Elder One. For the Venatori. They had taken him in when he had nowhere else to turn - a pariah in his own family! - and given him plenty of outlets for his urges. Redcliffe being an excellent example of such an outlet. An excellent example indeed.  
  
He began by disposing of that busybody at the gates. Ignoring the warning swat of her sword against her shield, and not caring to let her finish saying 'State your business!', he strolled casually up to her and shut her clucking mouth... By conjuring a glimmering, impeccably polished icy spear, about as thick as his arm at its blunt end, and tossing it telekinetically towards her, with the intention of having it enter her throat like a cork. And so it did.   
  
During his final year at the Circle, he had spent nights on end poring over enormous, boulder-heavy tomes, staring at runes and diagrams till the inky lines merged together into a hazy black cloud, and his head began to feel as if a glass phial had shattered into countless tiny, razor-sharp shards inside it. All with a singular purpose - to learn that advanced spell that healers would sometimes use to see through the patient's flesh and discern the condition of their internal organs. Only in Ignatius' case, of course, the application of the spell was so, so much more fun!  
  
He cast it to watch his summoned spear squeeze down and down, grazing the tender mucous membrane, and then pierce through the guardswoman's stomach, and melt away in the scorching jet of internal bleeding, turning her agonized screech into a comical gargle.  
  
Ignatius smiled when the spell wore off, and the speared-down clucking hen slid down the village gate's wall, her teeth shaded dark-red like two rows of juicy cherries, and her lips purplish white from drowning.  
  
One down, so many more to go.


	7. Chapter 7

The one downside of Ignatius' organ-highlighting spell was that it was somewhat taxing to cast. When he was finished with the guardswoman - drawing many a stifled 'Oh!' and 'Ah?!' from his closely watching companions - he found himself slightly groggy and out of breath, staggering in place with almost no feeling in his limbs.  
  
This would have made him an easy target for a handful of other guards, who came racing towards the gate like ever so many hound pups, yipping and sniffing and clumsily trying to look menacing (as if some scruffy, badly washed southerners could ever intimidate a true Tevinter).  
  
Thankfully, the other Venatori, though perhaps not as versed in magical torture as his own magnificent self, were fairly quick with their reflexes.  
  
The expression on the Ferelden pups' faces was quite amusing when their silly little weapons began to thrum with sparkling green telekinetic energy, trying to slip out of their grasp and turn upon their own wielders.  
  
It did not always happen, however.  
  
Some guards - the weaker ones, obviously green recruits, with the soft, rounded lines of youth still tracing their features, and glistening, revoltingly oozing mounds of pimples still peppering their cheeks and temples - did grow exhausted by retaining a grip over their own jerking and bucking blade, and allowed it to slip free, skinning their palms raw in the process, and then to whiz downwards, steel meeting jugular with a most delicious chop and squelch. No more anguish of puberty for those urchins.  
  
But even among them, one guard - that freckled child with a face that looked as if he had sped head on into a tree - managed to get away. Jaw drooping down on its hinges, eyes huge as saucers, he had instinctively lurched away when his own sword, held up in mid-air and enveloped in a pulsing green glow, attempted to cleave his pumpkin head off his boyishly narrow shoulders. As a result, the blade carved through leather instead of flesh and sinew and bone, and, drawing a long, zigzagging white scratch across his armour, found a gap between protective straps and thrust itself in there.  
  
Shrieking like a stray cat in heat, the freckled boy jumped back, which separated him from the magically controlled weapon. It had not been lodged too deep, or too firmly, as it turned out; Ignatius would have to reprimand the spell caster for such shoddy work. It was that monobrowed girl, what was her name, one of the few members of his expedition that had not bristled too much at the thought of marching on Redcliffe. She had nodded when the others objected - but then again, she had also nodded whenever Ignatius spoke. Very eager to please, that one.    
  
Ignatius had even heard rumours that she had been reassigned from the excavation team in the Western Approach to the Ferelden division after she nearly boiled a visiting Livius Erimond alive, being in such a hurry to bring him breakfast to his tent that she tripped over a rug and sent forth a potful of scalding coffee. That would have surely melted off his eyes (an interesting spectacle, Ignatius had to admit) had he not frozen the projectile in mid-air with a frost spell, directing the excess magic - shaped like an ethereal icy hand - square into the girl's face, in a stinging slap.  
  
At least right now, she made up for her sloppiness (to a certain extent), when the freckled pup slung forth his shield with the red, white and grey crest.  
  
He had been holding it all the time in his off-hand - but too crookedly and awkwardly for it to provide any protection from the enchanted blade. This clumsy toss was the most use the shield had brought to the boy so far: as it zoomed through the air, spinning as it went, it clashed against the suspended sword, knocking down into the sloshing mud on the ground, and following suit with a dull thunk. Upon which, the young guard broke into a run, holding his chubby hand, speckled brown and red with freckles and blood, against slashed-up his side ,and sweating profusely with the effort of carrying his failing, bleeding body off. Away from the gate and towards the castle that loomed over the village, outlined in dark, misty blue that blended with the cold southern sky.  
  
'Yes, run!' the coffee girl bellowed after him, bobbing on her heels, her voice hoarse and quivering with enthusiasm.  
  
'Run and tell everyone in this hole that the Venatori are coming!'  
  
After she finished, she inhaled loudly, blood rushing to her face, and met Ignatius' eyes, with a pleading (very annoyingly so) look that screamed 'I did well; yes, yes, yes? Please tell me I did well!'  
  
Ignatius found it quite repulsive - but at least she did not assault him with breakfast in bed (and who was to say, maybe her face-boiling inclinations could find a use in... entertainment). In the end, he conceded to rewarding her with a thin, forced smile. She had made their arrival more dramatic, after all - and he could approve of that.  
  
In the meanwhile, the more mature guards, all stubble and veins and angular lines, had been doing what the freckled boy had tried to do, with far more success: raising their shields against the glowing weaponry that was circling around their heads like a flock of birds with massive steel beaks.   
  
The unshaven bumpkins showed rather exasperating battle finesse, blocking strike after strike after strike, splinters and sparks flying all about them in tiny fountain jets, and the thump-clang-chop of metal against wood almost shaping out into some manner of grating melody... But it was not entirely a disappointment: the unending sparring session with their own blades had absorbed the guards' full attention (one could not expect anything else, what with primitive minds being incapable of holding more than one thought at a time). So they had not noticed the subtle change in the posture of one of the Venatori - a pale-eyed fellow with receding hair that Ignatius had seen jumping about back in the day, during those Alti-sponsored riots against the bill to give the Soporati equal education rights. A wisely placed investment, that, and with the most satisfactory result: the bill had been run into the ground, and justly so; whoever had come up with that ludicrous idea must have still been recovering from a very, very long night of feasting, with a lot of strong herbal fumes.  
  
While the guards were busy keeping the flying swords at bay, the rioter had slipped away from the group of the Venatori that was casting the telekinesis spell, and switched to elemental magic instead. So, before they knew it, the southerners got thoroughly, delightfully drenched in a downpour of conjured flame, which lashed at their backs and faces, digging sticky, singed claw marks through the leather of their cuirasses, setting their hair alight with a firework-like frizzle and a whiff of acrid smoke, and making large, grape-like blisters ripen on their foreheads and obscure their eyes.   
  
The telekinetic hold over their blades had loosened by that point, releasing them into the dung - but it did not really matter. The guards were engulfed in flames now, rushing back and forth like half-plucked chickens that had catapulted out of the broiling soup pan, their tiny brains not yet registering the inescapable truth that they had been cooked. Fully recovered from his exhausting spell work, Ignatius sauntered leisurely in their wake, the rest of the Venatori filing in after him. The burning guards paved quite a scenic path for them through the village streets, staggering into haystacks and wheelbarrows and other rustic whatnots and settling them alight - so that soon, there were dancing, twisting, ravenous tongues of red and gold soaring to the sky on either side of them.  
  
The poor little peasants flocked out of their homes, clutching their measly belongings to their chests, while their already tiny, unattractive eyes (they could have been made more aesthetically pleasing only by getting pulled out of their skulls and displayed in a preservation jar) turned eye beadier, squinting in the smoke and leaking murky, greyish tears, mixed in with soot. Without stopping, Ignatius shot down one or two of them with a quick lightning charge, just for the sake of watching the others scatter, mindless like a school of bug-eyed fish with a pebble dropped in their midst. A few of Ignatius' companions began to grouse again: were they not here for the rebel mages? Why all this slaughter? They would just turn their targets hostile like this, and be forced to kill them instead of recruiting them... And so on and so forth.  
  
But Ignatius knew that deep down, quite a few of his comrades were not truly outraged. It might seem careless and ill-advised to drink too much - but even those denouncing the habit would hardly be able to stop once the sweet, sweet wine tickled their thirsty tongues. Same with sowing panic among the southerners. Not prudent, yes - but who would resist the urge to grin in satisfaction when a blast of sizzling purple sowed down some pot-bellied slob in an artisan's apron, who had not proved quick enough to get away?  
  
One foolish villager, however, refused to entertain them by limping off from where one of Ignatius' spells made its strike. Instead he just stood right there, bolt upright, a fraction of an inch away from a large, star-shaped patch of charred grass, the suarish tip of his heavy, clay-caked boot almost treading on the matted net of hair that spread all over the ground round the clammy-grey forehead of his fellow bumpkin, whom Ignatius had just shot down. It might have been his son, or younger brother, or some other relative: the two men had practically the same roughly outlined, intellectually unendowed faces - except that, quite naturally, the one on the ground now had black smoke snaking out of his half-open, loop-shaped mouth.   
  
The one who was still standing, in turn, also had his jaw hanging loose, his lips twisting like two fleshy worms amid the bristling growth of stubble. Ignatius had seen that twist among the symptoms of pain among the slaves he had amused himself with - though he could not fathom why this particular villager would be feeling pain; the spell had not even grazed him!  
  
'Maker curse you, you fucking mages!' the man bawled suddenly, lifting his fist and giving it a couple of emphatic shakes. 'We should never 'ave had your lot hole up in the castle! Not after what happened ten years ago!'  
  
He would have raged on - but Ignatius silenced him in the same manner that he had had the hen at the gate. With a well-aimed shard of ice to gag him and to puncture his innards. This time, though, he did not linger to watch him bleed out from within: the slip of the lout's tongue had filled Ignatius' fingers and toes with a tickling, eager shiver, which spread in rapid waves along his veins and towards his heart. The castle. Their prey was in the castle.  They were so, so close!  
  
As he might have expected, the more they progressed towards that misty outline, the more guards they encountered along the way. Likely drawn out by the flashes of mage fire and the cries of the village folk, they poured out before the Venatori, resembling cockroaches both in number, armour colouration, and tenacity. It may have seemed to those weaker in their faith that the southerners were just about to prevail over the servants of the Elder One; that the expedition was outmatched, cornered, doomed. But Ignatius had never stopped believing; he had never stopped trusting his instincts - those of a hunter, ever on the sweetly scented trail of blood. And his adamant conviction that he was doing the right thing was ultimately rewarded. By sheer chance.  
  
Some among the advancing guardsmen were armed with bows rather than swords and shields, and kept pulling the string back further and further with every step they took, until, with a multitude of sharp twangs overlaying against one another, and a multitude of whooshes blending into a deathly wind, their arrows were released - to clash against the Venatori's protective wards... For the most part.  
  
Only one of those arrows found its quarry. Someone too concerned with searching for signs of further approval in Ignatius' face to notice that an archer was taking aim at her. Someone too clumsy to erect a spell barrier in time. The monobrow girl.  
  
The arrow hit her in the chest - not quite in the heart, apparently, for she still flopped about for quite a bit instead of instantly dropping dead - but as close as it could get. The wretched thing bled like a piglet, sagging down to all fours and heaving ragged, sob-like breaths, while the front of her robes grew moist, weighing her down. And that was when fate was kind enough to inspire Ignatius, to show him the way; that was when his own bloodlust dictated what had to be done, whispering into his ear with the seductive gentleness that other people, as he had heard, expected from their lovers.  
  
'You have always wanted to make yourself useful, haven't you, child?' Ignatius cooed, kneeling by the side of the dying girl, while the other Venatori, slinging concerned glances now and again over their shoulders, shielded the two of them with magic from the guards' onslaught.  
  
She moaned something moo-like in reply - and, taking it for a yes, Ignatius tapped her cheek lightly with his hand.  
  
'Well then, you will not get more useful than this!'  
  
With these words, he rose up slowly, balling his hand into a fist and making a deliberate pulling motion, which made all the blood the girl was loosing - wasting! - shape itself into a single silken ribbon of purest scarlet. Slurping and bubbling, the ribbon rose over her now drained body - so still and so wonderfully silent - and, looping in a coil after coil after coil, as if wielded by one of those petite knife-eared dancers Ignatius' cousins loved to bring in from the brothel, travelled through the air towards his extended, expectant hand.  
  
This was enough life energy to enhance Ignatius' magic - at least for a time - and allow him to topple any adversary with a lazy wave of his hand.  
  
Which was what he fully intended to do. One wave - and the guards were knocked off their feet by an unseen force. Unseen, yet crushing; so much so that some of their bones snapped under the pressure, crunching like a treat in the slobbering maw of one of these southerners' beloved dogs.  
  
The path to the castle was clear. The rebels stood no chance.


	8. Chapter 8

n fear. Not that some puny wards would be able to hold off the mighty Imperial magisters, of course! Not for long, surely!  
  
'So here you are. The cultists from the Herald's messages. Come to enslave us, have you? To drag us to your Imperium on a leash? Well, I am afraid you are about to be disappointed...'   
  
Her eyes burned green like the fires of the raw Fade, and her staff thrummed and crackled in her hand.  
  
'None of us shall be slaves again!'  
  
Her weapon spat out a blaring turquoise arcane bolt, the wood and metal that it was crafted from now completely unseen under the veil of rippling, bright magical aura. But this flash of cold light was met with a blood-red heat wave that rushed from the Tevinter.   
  
When the two spells met in mid-air, crossing like a pair of daggers and simmering down into nothingness, with but a puff of smoke left behind, Linnea had to place her hand over her heart, to at least somehow contain the mad drumming of her heart, which tossed itself against her ribs, time and time and time again, with such force that she could have sworn it would rip a path through her flesh any moment now. Just look how tall he stood, how regal; how effortlessly his magic came to him! Fiona was wrong about him - she had to be! Perhaps he did enslave other people, lesser people, people with no fiery power flowing through their veins; but he would never do that to his fellow mages!  At least, not to mages with magister potential - like her, Linnea!   
  
And when he began to speak, replying to what Fiona had said, her heart started beating even faster.  
  
'Such strong words you use, you brash, foolish elf... What we are offering is not a leash, but an honour. You have been found a fitting tool to help the Elder One - the only true god of this wretched world - achieve his goal. You can play a part in rebuilding the Imperium of old! In bringing back the days when all nations bowed down to their rightful mage lords; when...'  
  
Damn, damn Fiona! The Tevinter looked like he was intending to speak on and on, painting a picture that stirred up Linnea's hunger again - but the useless old woman talked over him! She actually talked over him!  
  
'Here are some more strong words for you,' she cut in.  
  
Her voice was raised, but not to a scream: screams were, by definition, emotional; but Fiona spoke almost like a Tranquil would. Calmly. Evenly. With her words falling in an odd, chilling cadence, like the swings of a pendulum measuring the moments someone had left to live.  
  
'We are not tools. We are people. People that deserve freedom. Which is why,' she glanced side away at the arl, who was hovering amongst the mages, evidently undecided whether she should risk throwing himself into melee and suffering the same fate as the oxman.  
  
'Which is why we have wound up here in the first place'.  
  
The Tevinter shrugged - a gesture filled with a superior elegance, like everything else he did.  
  
'We have come this far, on a mission to bolster the ranks of the Elder One's legion. And we shall not leave until we get what is ours. You there!'  
  
He swatted his hand impatiently in the direction of a couple of his comrades.  
  
'Go build a spell shield around the castle. No-one leaves until the rebels swear allegiance to the cause!'  
  
The Tevinters he had addressed trotted off obediently - while Fiona barked out orders of her own.  
  
'Someone, stop them! Connor, protect the children! The rest of you, stand with me!'  
  
The instant the word 'stop' left her mouth, Linnea knew in her heart - her racing, soaring heart - that the 'someone' was going to be her. What better opportunity to catch the Tevinter's for a private conversation; to reassure them that she was ready to worship that Elder One of theirs, to march under his banner, so long as they made her a magister... Only, blast it, the conversation was not going to be so private, after all!  
  
Another mage had gotten it into his head that he needed to tag along with her, uninvited and unwanted. No-one Linnea knew personally (not that she had been mingling with a lot of people in Ostwick or afterwards, not like that wretched Nadia). Some balding, portly fellow, of the sort that had sided with the rebellion because they had laughable, lowbrow dreams of hammering together a shack in the countryside somewhere, and of raising children and breeding chickens and adopting kittens side by side with a rosy, beaming spouse, without the constant, sickly tense pull in the pit of their stomach, at the thought that the Templars might burst in at any moment, knocking down the door and dragging them away from all they'd built. Nadia and that blonde boy of hers, Maxwell, had also longed for a life like that. For serenity and contentment and rolling green hills or whatever. Pathetic aspirations for pathetic minds.  
  
Linnea grimaced whenever she heard the other mage pant in her wake - but did not do anything about his infuriating presence up until they reached the castle's courtyard. The Tevinters were already there, glancing about nervously and whispering to each other behind the screen of their black sleeves.  
  
'Raise a spell shield! Easy for Ignatius to say, when he has taken all that blood from the... the useful girl'.  
  
Useful girl? Linnea had not the vaguest notion what they were speaking of - but it did give her an idea.  
  
Surrounding the whole castle with a barrier had to be a very complex arcane ritual, and to make it work, they likely needed powerful magic. Blood magic. And - oh, how very fortuitous! - Linnea just happened to have a handy source of blood right there with her. Offering it to the Tevinters was guaranteed to impress them! To make them embrace her as one of their own!  
  
Whoever that 'useful girl' may have been, her time had passed. Now it was Linnea's turn to shine.  
  
With a manic, drawn-out smile playing on her lips, she swirled around and met the portly mage's gaze, while her hand travelled along her staff, lifting it up with the lower tip - very sharp lower tip - facing forward.  
  
The quivering, perspiring fool was more than obviously regretting his decision to follow Fiona's command.  
  
'D-don't... d-don't hurt me...' he stammered, walking backwards towards the castle's front door, his trembling hands searching feverishly for the ring-shaped metal handle.  
  
'The magisters need blood for their ritual,' Linnea said in reply, hearing her voice in a rather... weird way; like someone was speaking outside her, someone distant and chillingly calm like Fiona had been.    
  
She tried to ignore the feeling, though. She was not going to be frightened of her own self; she was not going to have qualms when her future in the glorious empire of Tevinter depended on pleasing the Venatori!  
  
And thus, knitting her eyebrows and squaring her jaw, she thrust the staff in.


	9. Chapter 9

The journey south had not been kind to Felix.   
  
Which was... saddening more than anything, since he had been so fond of travelling throughout his whole life. Both as a tiny, chatty child hanging his head out of a carriage window (much, much too far for Father's comfort) while the road rushed ahead, like a white-gold serpent slithering at the base of the grand crumbling aqueduct built in the days of the Old Imperium, and the sea glimmered like a heap of silver coins through the vine-covered arches. And as a giddy first-year student of the University of Orlais, spinning in place with his head thrown back and gazing at the towering spires of Val Royeaux against the vividly saturated background of the cloudless azure sky - ignoring the slight pinch of his brand-new many-ruffled clothing, and swallowing now and again, his nose and mouth prickled by the tantalizing smell that streamed from a nearby bakery... what was that... fresh crispy toast... and something very, very sugary that probably came in dainty golden wrappings and cost more than the fare from Tevinter and back.  
  
Ah, he had been so fond of travelling - and under different circumstances, he would have devoured each most trivial detail of the harsh yet laconically beautiful southern landscape with the excitement of a twelve-year-old. But alas, every step of the way, the Blight had been making itself known, sloshing through his veins, cloying his lungs, weighing down his heart. There was no escape from it - even with the bulging, clanking satchel full of potion vials and observation journals that he had packed for himself before heading out with Maevaris to look for Dorian.  
  
Plus a sizeable supply of sponges to rest under his head as he slept. When travelling in his condition, Felix would never allow himself to use the linen provided by tavern owners and such, lest tainted blood came out of his nose or mouth while he slept, its flow unchecked by Father or any other caregiver, and seeped through the fabric: it would have been impossible to wash off completely, and would have eventually caused an outbreak of the Blight among the staff and guests. A sponge over the bare bed carcass, on the other hand, soaked up any of the blood - and while Felix was not technically a mage, not like Father or Dorian, he still had enough arcane reserves within him to cast the most basic fire spell and burn the used sponge up.  
  
Back in his cold, empty home, he had scooped up as many of those sponges as he could fit in among his other travelling supplies, along with all of Father's notes that he thought might be of use. He... He had raided his deserted study like a thief, his gut twisting tightly with an odd sensation that would drive him to look towards the door now and then, as if he were a teenager once more and Father could come in any moment now, wondering, sternly but not unkindly, why Felix was up past bedtime, and what he was looking for on the sly like that.   
  
It had not been a fearful feeling; not a dread of being caught and punished... Rather, it had been a sort of... longing. A naïve hope to see him again. To hear his voice. To have it all turn out to have been nothing but a bad dream.  
  
In hindsight, some of the scattered pages that he had, uh, looted had turned out to be old, yellow-tinted doodles of Mother and himself as a baby. Messy swirls of pencil dashes that, if you looked at them long enough, fell into the outlines of recognizable features: the soft shadow under the lower lip, the faint crescents of dimples, the fuzzy cloud of hair - disrupted by an occasional grey blot that would scald Felix's heart like a splash of boiling water as he traced his fingers along the crinkled sheet.  
  
He understood, with yet another piercing pang adding to the constant pain within his cough-racked body, why Father may have kept those drawings - as reminders of a happier past, tucked among the rune-covered parchment sheets, and ink prints of engravings detailing the anatomy of the human body, and meticulously compiled potion formulae that dealt with the bleak, tainted present. But he himself had hidden them away to the very bottom of the satchel - for, unlike Father, he did not believe that their past could be brought back. He was doomed to die, to join Mother wherever it was souls went after mortal life was over (he had a feeling she was having fun exploring the place; she had always been intrigued by the secrets beyond the Veil). And the only reason why he was making an effort to keep himself alive was so that he could rescue Father.  
  
Speaking of which: although he had grabbed some wrong papers by accident, the actual research notes had proved enough for him to keep following his treatment regimen. But all the same, all those dry, sneeze-inducing powders and foul-tasting mixtures were clearly meant to be administered in the comfort of a bedroom, next to a welcoming fireplace and always within reach of a watchful, fretful parent.  
  
Not at the back of a careening coach driven by a grouchy surfacer dwarf who was naught but an oversized hat, a long overcoat, and a pair of half-lidded eyes in between.   
  
Nor in a tiny cabin aboard a vessel that might as well have been hanging upside down from the tip of a giant wave... Maker, Felix could still hear the waves pounding against the dim window - which was about the size of his fist - and the croaky voice of the captain, warning him snappishly,  
  
'Hey, you, fancy noble - if your moustached buddy complains about the smell of mould again, you two are going to sleep in the hold! Bit of slumming with us lowborns will do you good!'  
  
They had never been tossed in the hold, thankfully - in such packed conditions, Felix could well have left some bloody spittle on the floor or wall somewhere for someone to mar themselves with and become infected. But still, the stretch of the route that they had had to cross by sea had been the worst, for them both.   
  
Poor Dorian had spent most of the voyage doubling over the board of the ship, or cradling a bucket, so overcome by sea sickness that even his complaints - which he most likely had meant to be nonchalant and sarcastic - would come out faint and whine-like. And Felix had been so sorry for him that he had not dared to disturb him any further with a plea for assistance - even for a hand to support him, such less for a healing spell to strengthen the effect of the powders and make the ache in his head and chest recede.  
  
So while Dorian had been struggling with the ceaseless surges and plummets of the slippery, brine-washed deck, Felix had mostly been curled up in the cabin (which did smell of mould). Nursing the satchel close to his chest, because, had it been placed any further, he would not have been able to muster enough strength to reach for it and pull out his appointed dosage. And trying his utmost to drift off to sleep - only to have the spirits (or demons, he supposed) torment him with nightmares. Dark, striking visions of Father being pulled away from him, struggling and screaming noiselessly and reaching back with shaking hands, obviously in great pain. Held in chains by faceless strangers in lavish robes with in the style of at least two generations back - of the kind Felix had not even realized he remembered seeing on his grandfather; a figure that had not haunted his night terrors for many years.  
  
For some (probably Fade-related) reason, all of these heartrending images had always manifested themselves before Felix in shades of grey, with the only coloured spots being Father's twisting, tear-streaked face, and the ruby-red traces of blood upon his clothing.   
  
Time and time again, Felix had woken up from these dreams drenched in cold sweat and quaking all over, the sponge under his icy cheek black with blood.  
  
'Maker... Please let him be alive,' he had always whispered after that, while a small but wounding thought poked, thorn-like, at the back of his brain, that Father must have been praying for the same all this time.  
  
'Please, please let him be alive... Please don't let me die before he returns to safety...'  
  
But now, thank heavens, the most taxing part of the journey was over. He and Dorian, still a little bit quiet after all their trials, both walked on solid ground again, amid the shades of forest green and brown and gold instead of steely grey and dark watery blue. Along a quaint countryside road, lapped against by the last wilting wild flowers of the summer instead of the raging froth of the sea.  
  
And if they could truly trust the map they had procured from a shady-looking fellow in the southern port, who would not let them pass down a narrow harbourside street until they took a look at the wares he was peddling, the village of Redcliffe was not too far.  
  
The village of Redcliffe... The village of Redcliffe was burning.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the stall in the plot progression; a scene with a mabari imprinting on Felix has suddenly written itself in! (Boy does look like he will benefit from a service dog, doesn't he?).

The road sign was there, just like in the dream Felix had explored with Feynriel - but aside from that, what lay beyond the village gate was nothing like the idyllic painting the Fade had crafted for them.  
  
To begin with, there was a dead body on the ground, barely inside the gate!   
  
A young woman in leather armour, with her arms thrown wide apart and a painted shield resting by her side in the mud, discarded. The image smudged over its surface was that of the village's eponymous red cliff - though it was hard to tell whether the moist-looking streaks of dark crimson were part of the design or fresh blood traces.  
  
The poor soul's eyes were still wide open, rolled back into their sockets in an expression of unending pain - and her mouth was turned into a bottomless black hole, as if someone had forcefully choked her on something that hard torn up her lips and mangled her throat. The broad red stripe that ran down her chin and neck, clotting in places into slimy, almost black lumps, indicated that she must have died drowning in her own blood. Like Felix would, one day.  
  
Shifting his satchel to get it out of the way, he knelt heavily down beside the corpse and, his windpipe cracking in the grip of unseen vice, rested his hand on the murdered woman's face, closing her lids. When he got up again, he discovered that Dorian had already moved ahead, further down the street that led into the village. His figure, tensely balancing on tiptoe and with a mage's staff on the ready, held up nearly parallel to the ground, was almost an inky silhouette against the billows of smoke that gushed out of a few buildings ahead.  
  
Felix trotted up to him, his heart sinking lower and lower with every step he took. No matter where his gaze fell, he saw nothing but the glaring markings of destruction: scaly grey carcasses of what one must have been wagons and sheds and stacks of farming tools; orange swirls of fire, leaping from one thatched roof to another; and more bodies. Prostrate forms of swordsmen in the same armour as the woman at the gate, apparently decapitated by their own blades; and common villagers, resting face down, with the backs of their thick, roughly woven shirts black and brittle like (and Felix hated himself for coming up with a comparison like that) the crust of an overcooked loaf.  
  
'Kaffas!' Dorian groaned, inhaling sharply and giving his staff an abrupt twirl - mechanically, out of sheer force of habit, for his gaze was completely focused on a smouldering hay stack, which he had begun to pellet with ice charges, aiming to put out the flame before it spread to the wall of the plain, squarish building that the stack was leaning against.  
  
'This is not good! Not good at all!'  
  
With tension still wrapping its heavy chains around his back, he walked closer to the haystack to make certain that the drizzle from the melting enchanted ice had beaten down the fire - and glanced sideways at the corpse that was plastered over the singed earth a few steps away.  
  
'These hapless fellows have definitely been struck down by magic! The local runaway apostates do not grow so bold, though - if that man with a woolen pancake on his head is to be believed... You know, the one we asked for directions? The one who thought you needed to eat more?'  
  
Felix smiled, in spite of himself: he did remember him very well, that wrinkled, sun-bronzed shepherd or farmer, with his rustic charm and two-toothed smile, as he insistently pushed a rather damp towel, wrapped around a thick lump of soft white cheese, into the hands of 'ye poor pale boy, not gettin' enough grub from yer noble homestead with the war goin' on'.   
  
In the end, he had politely refused the treat: the old man needed sustenance for his own travels, and Felix did hope that he had eventually reached some safe refuge, away... away from this.  
  
His smile of reminisce was quick to fade, as he finished Dorian's guessing chain for him, his heart now not sinking, but downright plummeting,  
  
'If the village has not been overrun by apostates, it must have been the Venatori... D-Dorian...'  
  
The childish, frightened squeak in his voice made Dorian leave the haystack and the corpse be, and look back, the corners of his lips drawn down.  
  
'D-Dorian... Do you think... They had Father with them? Do you think... he is all right?'   
  
'We... We will have to keep looking, won't we?' Dorian responded with a fleeting frown - which he chased away with an impatient jerk of his head.   
  
'Keep collecting clues. Pavus and Alexius, Sleuths Extraordinaire!'  
  
He went back to following the street, inviting Felix to join him with an elaborate flourish of his staff-free hand.   
  
'Someone from the village has to still be lurking about... Somewhere out there, in these smoking ruins. Someone alive enough to answer our questions. I could always raise one of these unlucky chumps, of course... But I am afraid the smell would be too much for our constitution, recently compromised by the pifalls of the sea'.  
  
Dorian had turned out to be right (and Felix made sure to tell him that, because his friend's comical eyeroll and moustache twist and matter-of-fact 'Of course I am right! I am always right!' was a welcome distraction from all the desolation that surrounded them).  
  
There were, in fact, quite a few survivors 'lurking about'. Or rather, not lurking, but crowding amid the greenish, mossy supports of the lake pier that Felix and Feynriel had glided over in the vision. Filling up buckets (and also pots and jugs and even an occasional dinted helmet) with water from the deep pools that had welled up in the moist soil along the shore, the villagers passed them on to one another - and after each vessel travelled along the line of grasping, slightly tremulous hands, callused by farm work and mostly darkened by soot, it was hoisted up and dragged off to the nearest source of flame.  
  
The survivors were too absorbed by the ceaseless, breathless cadence of their work to notice that they had been joined by two outsiders in foreign clothing and with decisively un-Fereldan features. That is, until Dorian attempted to help one of the bucket-carriers, a pigtailed girl whose bony, freckled knees buckled under the weight of the immense pail of water she had been handed.   
  
Before the little thing could drop her load, Dorian cast one of those spells he and Father would use to get a book from the top shelf. Glowing green, like it was held up by a swarm of fireflies, the pail steadied in the girl's hands, suddenly light as a feather. Amazed, she looked up over the sloshing water - and when her eyes met Dorian's, he gave her a smug grin, evidently expecting an ardent 'Thank you!'. But instead, the girl shrieked at the top of her tiny lungs, almost barrel-rolling away from the pail - which thus remained suspended at her height level above ground, unleashing a whole chain of other shrieks from the others in the crowd.  
  
'A mage!' the villagers chanted, their eyes widened to pale, fearful spheres on their grimy faces. 'A mage! A mage!'  
  
While this cry filled the air, rousing the gulls that had perched themselves on the pier posts (after whirling up in a flutter of long, dagger-like wings, they, too, joined the chorus with short, sharp cries that also sounded like an endless repetition of 'Mage! Mage!'), some of the Redcliffe folk ducked into the shadows below the pier, shrinking their heads into their shoulders to look inconspicuous. Others, by contrast, reacted with far greater boldness: before long, Dorian found himself accosted by some half a dozen very unnervingly tall and brawny men - and also one woman, not as tall but no less brawny, and definitely quite as unnerving. Like the girl, she had been carrying a bucket in her hands - and did not hesitate a moment before tossing its contents at Dorian in one gigantic swoosh and splash, which left him miserably drenched from the crown of his head down his knees, with his hair drooping down in sticky triangular fringes, his moustache looking like a shapeless caterpillar and his kohl streaming down his cheeks as if he were weeping with outrage. And also smelling faintly of algae.  
  
The shock of being showered in marshy lake water stupefied Dorian (the only immediate response he could muster was a stifled 'Well, that was uncalled for') and broke his focus on the telekinesis spell. So the girl's pail fell, rattling, to the ground; and after the liquid within poured out, forming a small murky puddle, it rolled right under Felix's feet as he attempted to edge himself between Dorian and his rough-mannered assailants. Needless to say, he ended up tripping and flying off backwards, meeting the earth with a painful dull thud. At least the satchel, which he had pressed close to his stomach, seemed to have survived the fall.  
  
Seizing this opportune moment while both Felix and poor, thoroughly humiliated Dorian were incapacitated, the men and woman closed their ranks around them, not a ray of light breaking through the places where their massive torsos touched, and began rolling up their sleeves. Preparing for a beating that would surely have ended most tragically for Felix and Dorian's... constitutions - had it not been for one sound that was so common to Ferelden. The low warning growl of a hound.  
  
The beast had come bounding in from nowhere - and as, alarmed by its presence, the village brutes slowly began to draw apart, Felix caught a glimpse of its broad, muscular form, moving close to the ground on half-bent paws, belly scraping against the grass and jaws snapping at the villagers' ankles.  
  
'You... You want in, girl?' the woman asked in a puzzled tone. 'You want a piece of these maleficars?'  
  
The dog snarled, sounding quite humanly affronted; and Felix remembered the scarce snippets he had chanced to read on Fereldan folklore. According to some southern authors, hounds like these - mabari, was it? - were supposed to have superb levels of intelligence.   
  
And now, that intelligence appeared to be telling the dog that neither he nor Dorian were a threat.  
  
The moment the villagers drew back cautiously, placing themselves beyond reach of the dog's bared teeth, it - she - padded up to Felix and, the snarl fading from her snout and the stub of her tail moving in unmistakably wagging motions, placed one paw on his chest and looked at him with a keen curiosity. Just as baffled as the gaping, whispering villagers (and the rapidly blinking Dorian), Felix gave the mabari a weak smile. She responded by leaning in closer and sniffing his breath - and eventually, her jaws parted in what very much resembled a cheerful grin, and she stuck out her long, broad, wet tongue, and gave Felix a lick.  
  
Startled and covered in drool (but not really as discomforted as he had expected himself to be), he chortled to himself and impulsively reached up to... maybe... Give the dog a pet?  
  
He changed his mind at the very last moment, however, nothing the mabari's large, glinting white teeth - and instead whispered, falling back into the grass,  
  
'Are you certain licking me was a good idea? I am quite sick, you know...'  
  
The hound whined - and pressed its paw harder into Felix's shoulder, as if reassuring him that she knew. And that she was going to... protect him? Maker, he was probably delirious.  
  
'I d-don't understand...' the brawny woman stuttered. 'That's one of the arl's dogs, isn't it? Why isn't she attacking?'  
  
'Probably because she knows that there are bad mages... and good mages,' a new voice said - and before Felix knew it, he found a broad, gloveless hand offered to him to pull him back to his feet.   
  
The hand belonged to a deeply tanned, slightly long-nosed man with faint greyish circles under his eyes and a tuft of facial scruff under his lower lip, which he had not particularly cared to shave into a clear-cut goatee. Just as he had not cared to do something about his messy dirty blonde hair, which rose above his forehead like the crest of a bird. Dorian would disapprove, once he groomed himself back to a pristine condition - but as for Felix, he knew that he was a constant mess himself these days. Especially now, right after that stupid fall... And to add to that, something about the man seemed to have... stirred up the Blight.  
  
The muddled hum of voices that he would sometimes hear at the back of his head, when he went too long without taking his powders, now turned into a veritable wail, so loud that Felix thought he had come closer than ever to making out separate words. Calling to something within that man. Something that seemed to... answer?


	11. Chapter 11

He would seldom stay in Redcliffe for long spells at a time, even though this was technically meant to be his 'new home'. Or old home found again, if you were nitpicky. Though this time there was going to be no drooling cuddle pile with the dogs in the kennels - he was probably too big and scruffy and smelly for that now. Instead, he had been given separate quarters - in what he figured must have been little Connor's room before... things happened. Warm, with thick walls and a bed and everything. A place that - so long as he did not take to the bottle again - he was free to make his very own.  
  
So Teagan had told him, after he brought him here, Maker knew how many months... years?... back. It was... hazy, that part of his life: he could have sworn that one moment, he had been hunching over a bar counter in some tavern in Kirkwall... Or was it Starkhaven? Anyway, one moment, he had been gaping down stupidly at that stripe of dark-brown wood, which had stretched out before him in a slightly wobbly line, like an unpaved country road, with both its ends disappearing into an orange-tinted haze - and the next, he was already heaving his guts out, in what had already become a habitual... exercise. But not because the drink had made him sick as usual - or well, not just because that. He had been carried off from that tavern, and dumped on board a ship bound from the Free Marches for Ferelden, flying up and down, up and down, the waves tossing him up to the leaden, weeping sky and plunging him into black nothingness, making him feel like he was being chewed on by that 'Andraste' dragon in Haven all over again - while Teagan stood by his side, his hand placed on his back, and studied his grey-washed face with a mixture of pity and distaste.  
  
Apparently, the new Arlessa of Amaranthine - none other than Wendy Surana, the wide-eyed, pig-tailed little elf that he had once... called his friend - had been pulling strings in Denerim all this time, until she, at long last, convinced the queen to issue an amnesty.  
  
'She talked and talked and cried even,' Reagan had recollected, looking out at the roaring watery swell, while the powdery shower of brine slapped at his ears (which seemed to have grown... bigger with age; or maybe his hair had receded, from, uh, being pulled in I-am-surrounded-by-idiots frustration after Eamon had left him in charge in Redcliffe).  
  
'And eventually, Anora caved. I'd say because Surana and her fa... I mean, because Surana made a fair point that you have no claim to the throne. She told me where to find you, too. The Champion of Kirkwall spotted you a couple of times in the... local tavern; then, he crossed paths with that Nightingale character, and the Nightingale wrote to Surana, who passed the word to Anora... Who ordered me to... take care of you'.  
  
Ah yes. Then it had been Kirkwall, after all.  
  
He did not really know to feel about the fact that Wendy and Stabbity were keeping tabs on him. So he preferred not to feel anything at all. Drinking would have usually helped with that - but he had given his word that he would try to stop. Not that his word stood for much; not now, not when he was... nobody. Not a Warden, not a king, barely even a person. Still, worthless as it was, a word was a word, and since there were no taverns in the wilderness, this was where he had been spending most of his days.  
  
Wandering aimlessly underneath the silent trees.   
  
Testing out for how long he could last before his bones began screaming with exhaustion and his hungry stomach caved in on itself.  
  
Taking some wispy path at random and following it, his mind lost in the beating rhythm of his own feet, till it hit a dead end - or forked cunningly, like Morrigan's tongue had when she was about to shapeshift into a serpent (or just when she opened her mouth to say something), forcing him to stand and glare at the two possibilities opening before him, until he waved his hand in a curt, exasperated gesture and turned back.  
  
He had never been good at making choices. He had always needed someone to take his hand, to give him a shove at the back of his stupid, stupid head, to tell him which path was the right one. Be it Eamon, or senior Templars, or Duncan, or Wendy, or Teagan. And the one time he had listened to himself rather than someone else, it had ended in such a disgrace that he would still let out a tiny, unrestrained scream whenever he thought back on it.  
  
Young and impatient and blinded by tears of anger, he had walked out on Wendy - his comrade, his leader, his friend... his best friend! - the moment she suggested sparing the life of his mentor's murderer and letting him atone for what he had done by serving in the ranks of the very Wardens he had been chasing down.  
  
Of course she would do that - she was Wendy! The sweet, forgiving, assassin-sheltering, blood-mage-hugging, witch-befriending Wendy. And she and her throng of adopted misfits had actually done it, in the end. They had struck down the archdemon on the top of a flame-engulfed tower, and stopped the Blight, and earned themselves the big damn hero title.  
  
While he - the one person who had been with Wendy from the beginning; the one person who had more moral obligation to stay with her until the very last grand battle than a dagger-happy Chantry Sister, or an Antivan Crow, or a swamp witch, or a walking puzzle of a Qunari, or drunken dwarf - while he... While he had been too absorbed in his own hurt, and his desire to forget all that had ever happened to him. While he had not been there - because, for once in his life, he had tried to make his own choice; and chosen so very wrong.  
  
So what else he could do now, but violently beat down the thought that Wendy and Stabbity - maybe the others too - still had to be out there, looking out for him?  
  
What else could he do now, but hide, vanish off, dissolve in the great wide open like he had done that very first time - concealing himself from everyone that had known him once? From everyone and anyone, starting with  his former Blight-fighting companions, and ending with the people of Redcliffe, who had been keeping him in their memory first as a spindly-legged boy raised by giant slobbering dogs, and then as a valiant knight that had returned years later to shield them from the walking dead - and who did not at all deserve to get to know him the way he was today. A vagrant that their arl had taken under his wing because the queen had told him to - just as it had recently been the case with the rebel mages. A former exile. A recovering drunk with no future.  
  
What else could he do now but pick up a rock or a pine cone and sling it as hard as he could, his aim still a bit wobbly from a whole lifetime of drunken haze, the instant he'd catch sight of a raven, perched on a swinging branch over his head, sizing him up with its clever beady eye and shaking the foot that had a scroll tied to it, as if deliberately teasing him?   
  
Sometimes, the letter would be tied together with a hard, tightly woven string, with an official-looking waxen seal attached to it; and sometimes, it would be decorated with a bright silky ribbon, ripe red or sky-blue or cheery yellow, which would have a dried flower of a matching colour slipped underneath. The former, as he had guessed, would likely come from Stabbity, who, according to Teagan, had become some big fish in the Chantry - while the latter must have been sent by Wendy, the ribbons and the flowers being meant to cheer him up. Not that is mattered at the end of the day. Neither of them could be allowed to learn what he was up to. To see what he had become. No-one was. Except for the trees, and the occasional mabari that he would take with him from Teagan's kennels, for better defense against the things that lurked deep in the woods. Which, as of late, was far more likely to be a rage demon trying to use the thicket as kindling, or a despair demon doing some sort of wonky ice-skating routine over what once had been a small pond, or just a clump of bodiless eyes hovering to and fro, than, say a hungry bear or a dangerously unfriendly stag bent on getting the girl.  
  
It never would have dawned on him that the real danger that needed defending from would lurk in the streets of Redcliffe. It should have dawned on him, probably - but it had not. Not until it was too late.  
  
Not until, while ambling in shapeless, purposeless loops up some hills and down some hills again, he had to stop in his tracks, alerted by the angry growl of Cara, his mabari... Or well, she was not really his; he was just borrowing her from Teagan's household, where she has not even imprinted on anyone yet. He was rather hoping it would be him, since out of all the hounds from the latest litter, Cara had been the most eager to tag along with him... But no. She was just keeping him company, helping him out like you would help a passing stranger; but she would rather not bond with him. Girl was too smart for that. Like all mabari. Even Rutherford, the dog Wendy had adopted in Ostagar - naming him after a certain puppy-eyed Templar from her old Circle, and keeping the name even after that Templar had mistaken her for a demonic apparition and spat out some really nasty things - had sometimes been quite skeptical towards his attempts to make friends. Must have sensed what a wastrel he was dealing with.  
  
Well, going back to Cara... Even though she did not take him too seriously, she was at least very conscientious about keeping him from harm. And as it turned out, he growl had been prompted by a man in a broad-sleeved black robe with a conical hood that looked a bit like a dunce cap (he would know, he had sometimes been forced to wear one in Chantry school, for goofing off too much in class). He had a plump-looking scroll tucked under his belt - which made him a kind of... evil courier or something. Well that, and the fact that immediately upon seeing a random dishevelled fellow and a dog pop up in his path, he moved his hand through the air, as if he was sprinkling salt on something, and when sparks began shooting from under his fingertips, he cried out, with a rather thick accent that sounded... vaguely familiar,  
  
'Out of my way, southerner!'  
  
The order was followed up by a scathing arcane bolt, which would have burned all hair off the top of his head if he had not ducked.   
  
The evil courier swore - judging by the tone at least, as the separate words of his exclamation made no sense. Fast-ah-something... And then, when the courier stopped cursing and cast another spell, a stronger one this time, obviously intended to incinerate 'the southerner' and make the path nice and clean - that was when it hit him. He had seen a bunch of people that talked like that, and swore like that, and wore silly clothing sort of like that. Tevinter slavers - back in the Denerim alienage, almost ten years ago. Could they be... back?  
  
It was wrong, obviously, to assume that every single Tevinter was a slaver; there had to be nice people in the Imperium somewhere, all about petting puppies and knitting frilly pink scarves and dancing arm in arm in the village square on Satinalia... At least, Wendy would have insisted on that, with eyes ablaze.   
  
But the courier had attacked him first - and Cara sure was convinced that he was up to no good. The courier never got a chance to prepare a third spell after his second one frizzled out without hitting the target: the good mabari fell upon him, teeth bared, jowls tossing about; when he raised his arm to protect his face, she chewed right in, red froth filling her mouth.  
  
'Fucking dog lords!' the courier spat, writhing under Cara's weight. 'The Elder One will crush you all!'  
  
Now, that was far from something you'd hear from someone fond of knitting scarves and snuggling with little doggies.   
  
Another vicious bite from Cara, a quick strike from himself - with the simple guardsman's sword he would carry with him - and the gargling, kicking Tevinter lay quite still. After hesitating for a moment, he removed the scroll from the dead man's belt, packed it absently together with the scant remnants of the food he had snatched from the castle kitchens, and spent the next two hours or so tossing together a makeshift grave for him, with Cara helping him uproot the soil, which had been hardened by the first inklings of autumn cold.  
  
Even someone as malicious as this fellow did not deserve to just be left out there to have carrion birds swoop down upon him and peck his eyes out. Swooping was bad, after all.  
  
Sweaty and brown with earthen dust, he cringed at the memory of one of the countless one-liners he had once spewed out and, wiping his forehead, reached into his travel bag and, after sinking his fingers accidentally into a dried-up three-day-old pie slice, brought out the scroll again.  
  
It had gotten a bit greasy from contact with the pie and he did not even remember what else he had shoved into that bag - but with dark oily spots or without them, the courier's message was still unintelligible. Just strings of numbers, separated by punctuation points - which made him think he was dealing with a code of some sort. Each number had to stand for a letter, forming words... But as to how to fit the letters to numbers... Ugh, he had no idea.  
  
'This looks important, doesn't it, girl?' he said to Cara, flapping the parchment in front of her snout. 'We should probably show it to Teagan... Maybe he will find someone smart enough to decipher this. Whoever that Elder One is, he doesn't sound like he is planning to throw us a surprise party, eh?'.  
  
Cara whined, not really approving of yet another one-liner. That habit needed to be thrown out the window, just like his drinking. It only made him more pathetic.  
  
She did agree that they needed to return to Redcliffe, even tugging at his sleeve to speed him up. But hurry as he did, he still missed whatever horrid thing that had ravaged the poor longsuffering village in his absence, leaving a frightening amount of people dead, and quite a few buildings burning, with no visible help from Teagan's castle.  
  
And yes, there was also a source of the Blight, so powerful that sensing it gave him a kick in the gut like the strongest liquor (though it could just be lack of practice). For a moment, his hands and feet turning into chunky icicles with dumb dread, he even thought that the darkspawn were back... And Redcliffe had no-one to defend it except a washed-up failure!  
  
But no. The darkspawn were not back. The Blight that had beckoned him with its staggering call actually flowed through a person. A pale, scared young man, who seemed to have been helping the villagers before they turned on him and his moustached friend for being 'maleficars'. Good thing that true Fereldans would always trust their mabari as excellent judges of character: the moment Cara jumped on the pale fellow, licking him and wagging her tail, the mob that had been gathering round the two strangers desisted, giving him an opportunity to come close enough to talk.  
  
And they did have a lot to talk about.


	12. Sketch of Some Further Scenes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is not as much of a chapter as a huge Author's Note to let my readers know what is going on inside my head.

After pushing myself really, really hard to bring the storyline of Meanwhile in Redcliffe to a plot point that I was personally very excited about (namely, the emergence of Alistair, who is a former exile in this verse), I think I will give it a little rest for the sake of my own mental wellbeing. As forcing yourself to keep writing when real life is out to get you, both on the personal, domestic trouble level and on the global mess level, is not fun at all. I know that this is a lame excuse, and I have done so multiple times before, but I would rather leave my readers with an unfinished story than a story that is shoddily written because the author does not have enough motivation to smear over a thin slice of bread.  
  
  
  
I am not moving on forever though, because I absolutely adore the Herald!Alexius AU, and would live to at least supplement it with oneshots, which I have planned aplenty. Mostly dealing with Cassandra’s romance, of course, as what could be better than two of my favourite characters joined together in an emotionally intense relationship?  
  
  
  
As I go off to consider these oneshots - as well as the terrifyingly undefined fate of myself and the world at large - I must first outline the general plot that is to round up Meanwhile in Redcliffe, so that A: I do not forget my own continuity; and B: the readers have at least some of their possible questions answered.  
  
  
  
Here is how the story is meant to develop further:  
  
  
  
Alistair leads Dorian and Felix aside to talk, because he initially assumes that Felix could be a fellow Warden, maybe sent by his friend Surana to check on him, despite his efforts to cut her off and hide away what he has become. His wariness soon gives way to boyish excitement, however - of the kind he has not felt in years - as he discovers that Felix is, in fact, the closest thing to a Blight survivor that currently exists in Thedas. He gushes over the Blight research that Felix is carrying on his person - little as he understands it - until Dorian pointedly reminds him that this is all well and good but, uh, the village is still burning, don’t you think?  
  
  
  
They make certain that the people of Redcliffe - who are still on guard around Dorian and Felix, but trust Cara the mabari, who trots happily at Felix’s heel now - have the situation under control, and after most of the fires are put out, Felix begins tentatively asking,  
  
  
  
‘Um… Have you perhaps seen a man… about my height, in his fifties, short greying hair, brown eyes, thin lips and nose, squarish chin?’  
  
  
  
'Gets overdramatic easily,’ Dorian cuts in.  
  
  
  
Felix gives him a not too amused look, and goes on,  
  
  
  
'He has been kidnapped by a cult of… dark mages from Tevinter’.  
  
  
  
That does trigger a response from the villagers. A loud, cluck-like response. Though they do not recall seeing anyone to match that description, the 'dark mages’ were precisely the people that have set the village on fire - and the arl has barely done anything about it! What if the bastards have killed him? What if they are holding him hostage? And what was that purple light flashing above the castle?  
  
  
  
The commotion spurs Alistair on. He rushes off to the castle, more determined to report his encounter with a black-robed courier to Teagan than ever - and Dorian and Felix follow suit. It turns out that all access to the castle has been blocked by a barrier - but Alistair and Dorian work together to dispel it, the former wielding his half-forgotten Templar abilities to weaken the magic, and the latter dissolving the crackling purple veil with a lightning bolt. The way is clear, and the three men and a mabari charge in.  
  
  
  
Meanwhile, in the castle, the battle rages on, the Inquisition, rebel, and Venatori fighters being scattered all over the throne room. Bull, for one, has thawed (as have the Inquisition soldiers, who are luckily no longer under mind control). And he faces a choice: to cut down Ignatius, who is within clear reach, or to help a lost and overwhelmed Connor Guerrin protect the younger mages. In the end, Bull chooses the latter - perhaps foreshadowing Demands of the Qun - and when the Venatori encroaching on the children are gone, he gives Connor - who is stupefied and sweating, tears gushing out of his eyes - a pat on the shoulder, ruffles his hair playfully, murmurs 'You did good, kid’, and thinks to himself, 'Shit, I have adopted another one’.  
  
  
  
Linnea is in deeper than ever before; doggedly pursuing the Venatori’s approval and stewing in bitterness over arl Teagan’s dubious welcome, she goes straight for him - but Nadia jumps to defend the arl, as does Josephine 'Oh you didn’t know I used to be a bard’ Montilyet, who has had a dagger hidden up her frilly stocking all along. Leli’s thoughtful gift. For safety reasons.  
  
  
  
It does not do much good, as Josephine only had basic training and spent most of the recent years behind a desk - but it’s the intent that counts, and Nadia is there for quite deadly backup, clashing staves - and insults - with Linnea until the latter teleports away in a cloud of smoke.  
  
  
  
Plus, as fate would have it, Alistair’s eyes fall upon Josephine just as she is whipping the dagger out, her hair coming loose, her delightfully shapely chubby thigh just barely exposed, her golden blouse burning like a halo in the light of the torches and the flying spells. The sparkles that fill the poor fellow’s vision almost prove lethal as he zones out of the battlefield - but he is harshly pulled back to reality when Dorian cries out in surprise by his side, having recognized the boy he once duelled with in the man that has almost overpowered Grand Enchanter Fiona.  
  
  
  
They both hasten to help: Alistair pulls Fiona (whom his sad, aloof self has never really talked to before) to safety before Ignatius can impale her with a rain of ice shards, while Dorian steps in with a coy,  
  
  
  
'Ready for a rematch?’  
  
  
  
A crossfire of spell charges ripples through the room; Dorian and Ignatius take their boyhood duel to whole new level, slinging fire and lightning at one another while walking first onto the chairs and then onto the table laid for the Inquisition negotiations. And as Dorian is the one walking backwards, Ignatius facing him, this tips the balance into the latter’s favour: Dorian simply does not watch where he is going, and trips up on string of sausages, toppling onto his back.  
  
  
  
Ignatius is ready to gloat - but a new combatant has joined the fray. A snarling, sharp-fanged she-hound, who is not at all impressed by Ignatius’ mocking offer of a sausage to shut her up. She leaps on the table, aiming to pounce - and as Ignatius is distracted by trying to set her on fire, this could be an opportune moment for Felix.  
  
  
  
He has limped after Cara the hound as best he could - and even picked up a spit along the way (it once had slices of roasted meat and other snacks on it, and was cleaned off on the sly by Bull during the early stage of the negotiations). A spit is sort of like a rapier, right… And Felix did have two… or was it three… fencing lessons with an Antivan tutor as a teenager, when his father was still trying to figure out what his talent was, and invited the best masters of their craft from far and wide to teach him what they knew. He reasons that he may… May stand a chance… At actually striking this man down?  
  
  
  
But no. He cannot do it. His hand is shaking violently, worse than during his darkest sick days, and he is suddenly hearing his mother’s voice in his head, screaming his name… He is ready to toss the spit onto the floor, sobbing hoarsely, when someone comes up to him from behind, and a gentle voice says,  
  
  
  
'I know what you are feeling. I would get the same shakes in the face of danger after my twin brother died. You don’t have to force yourself to be brave. Not until you are ready. It’s okay. We will both be okay’.  
  
  
  
Warm, soft fingers weave through his and a candidly smiling young woman in a red scarf conjures a barrier to protect him - while on the table, Cara finally gets to the flesh of Ignatius’ calf, and Dorian staggers to his feet, killing Ignatius with a simple yet elegant thrust of an icy spear into his heart. One of his personal favourites, that spell, hmm?  
  
  
  
When the dust settles, Bethany and Nadia begin to walk among the injured, while Bull keeps track of the enemies’ bodies, working as a throat-cutter too (all the cultists are accounted for, except for Linnea, who has vanished into nowhere, much to Fiona’s regret).  
  
  
  
Alistair, in turn, remembers the courier’s coded missive, which is deciphered by a joint team of Bull, with his Ben-Hassrath experience, and Felix, with his knowledge of both mathematics and Tevene, which the code is based on. The message the courier was in such a hurry to deliver reads something as follows,  
  
  
  
'All servants of the Elder One must mobilize and march on the village of Haven. The heretic has taken the Templars and is moving to close the Breach’.  
  
  
  
The message comes as a shock to everyone - but Josephine and Fiona promptly settle on a plan of action. A small group of agents must race ahead, taking any horses that were not killed by the flames or an errant spell bolt, and warn the bulk of the Inquisition, while the rebel mages arm themselves for war and follow after.  
  
  
  
This group is set to include Dorian, who is itching to keep thwarting the Venatori; Josephine, who feels it is her duty to see to this personally; Alistair, who… is kind of… interested in this… Inquisition thing… and also… would very much like to travel with the lady Ambassador… if that… if that’s all right.  
  
  
  
And also, Felix. Who knows he will be a burden, but vows to fight back his illness and keep up with the others. Because Nadia, who has been watching and listening to him closely, called him aside and whispered to him, looking a bit in pain for some reason,  
  
  
  
'Look… This is not common knowledge, cause not everyone would take well to the Herald of Andraste being a Tevinter magister… But I think you ought to hear this. We officially call him Gideon, but the Herald’s true name is Gereon Alexius. He was in a… magic accident that gave him the power to seal Rifts. And he would very much like to be reunited with his son. A young man called Felix’.


End file.
